


Do I Dare?: The Nightmare

by frkmgnt1



Series: Do I Dare series [6]
Category: Final Fantasy XIII
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, DIDDTU?, F/M, Nightmares, Plot, Team as Family, Unofficial Sequel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-20
Updated: 2020-10-20
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:54:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27114997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frkmgnt1/pseuds/frkmgnt1
Summary: “Post traumatic stress disorder starts out with nightmares, flashbacks and actually reliving the event. And this happens over and over and over and over in your mind. If you let it go on, it can become chronic and become hard if not impossible to treat.”-Dale ArcherSnow was a ticking time bomb. Lightning knew it. Still, neither one could have predicted the results of one PTSD nightmare.
Relationships: Lightning/Snow Villiers
Series: Do I Dare series [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1864993
Comments: 10
Kudos: 5





	Do I Dare?: The Nightmare

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AmedamaCherry](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AmedamaCherry/gifts), [danamagic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/danamagic/gifts), [write_error](https://archiveofourown.org/users/write_error/gifts).



> I can't call this a true sequel to DIDDTU?, though it continues the story as it was left off in chapter 17. So, it's a continuation of the story, without being a conclusion to DIDDTU?
> 
> I gifted this story to three of my most dedicated readers/commenters. I appreciate all your support.

“Post traumatic stress disorder starts out with nightmares, flashbacks and actually reliving the event. And this happens over and over and over and over in your mind. If you let it go on, it can become chronic and become hard if not impossible to treat.”  
-Dale Archer

“You'd better bring your fucking knife  
Till we see eye to eye  
'Cause I'd rather cut your buttons off than be caught in a lie”  
-Pale, Kristin Hersh

Do I Dare?  
The Nightmare

Lightning startles awake, heart in her throat, having no clue as to what had disturbed her rest. A quick glance at the clock reveals that it is 2:27 am, which means that, whatever has woken her, it is unexpected. Snow had kept her up past one, making love to her until they were both well-satisfied. Exhausted, she’d set her alarm for 7:30 am and fallen into a deep sleep.

So what the hell woke her up?

Behind her, Snow grunts and twitches. She looks back over her shoulder at him and what she sees immediately worries her. Snow’s face is scrunched up in obvious distress. His brow is furrowed, covered in a sheen of sweat, lips pulled back from his teeth in a snarl. His head moves from side to side on the pillow, muscles of his bare chest and arms twitching and jerking. Beneath the blankets, his legs move and shift, as if miming the act of running. 

"Snow,” she whispers, attempting to quietly rouse him from his nightmare. A tiny grunt escapes Snow’s throat, ramping up Lightning’s concern. Snow doesn’t seem to be calming at all; if anything, he’s sinking deeper into the nightmare, and growing more anxious with every passing moment.

Making a decision, Lightning places a hand on Snow’s twitching bicep and calls his name again.

Snow’s hand closes around Lightning’s throat as he rolls her beneath him. His eyes are still closed when his weight lands on her, only opening when she wraps her fingers around his wrist and squirms. The fingers around her neck tighten, cutting off her protests and threatening to cut off her air any moment. Snow stares down at her, body shaking in rage, until something clicks in his brain and his weight disappears from her body.

“Oh my God! Light? I didn’t—! I couldn’t—!” He reaches shaking fingers towards her, stopping shy of touching her throat. Ignoring the tremors that wrack her body, Lightning reaches for Snow’s hand, wanting to soothe him. He jerks his hand away from her, then removes his entire body from her vicinity. “I’m so sorry. Oh my God!” He’s halfway across the bedroom before Lightning manages to sit up.

“I’m okay,” Lightning lies. She’s not okay just yet, but she will be if he just gives her some time. Her whole body shakes from the impromptu adrenaline dump.

“No. _No!_ Nothing about what I did is okay.” In the time it takes her to get her bearings, Snow manages to pull on his pants and shrug into his undershirt. When he snatches up his sweater, Lightning feels panic flood her with yet more adrenaline.

“Where are you going?” Snow is out of the bedroom before she manages to untangle herself from the bed linens. She nearly faceplants on the bedroom floor. “Snow? You’re not actually just leaving, are you?”

“I gotta go. I can’t be here."

“What? Why—?”

“I just attacked you, Lightning. I almost _killed you!_ ”

“No, you didn’t! Stop being ridiculous.”

“I’m not the one who’s being ridiculous. Look at your neck!”

Lightning’s hand flies up to her neck in an act of self-betrayal. She doesn’t have any clue what new marks he’s left on her throat; moreover: “I don’t fucking care. You had a nightmare! You didn’t ‘attack’ me!”

“I can’t stay here. It’s not safe for you to be around me.”

“Where in the world is safer than with you?” She asks through numb lips. The world is spinning off its axis, tossing Lightning somewhere out into the abyss. Is she still asleep? Maybe she’s having the nightmare. That would go a long way toward explaining why Lightning cannot process any sensory input.

There’s no goddamn way that Snow is walking out on her right now.

“Anywhere! I just attacked you in our bed, Lightning!”

“No. You. Didn’t. You had a nightmare! You were defending yourself. You didn’t hurt me!”

“Stop pretending that it’s no big deal. Don’t pretend that I didn’t scare you.”

Lightning considers not responding, but knows that silence will be taken as confirmation. Heaving a sigh, Lightning concedes, “Okay. You startled me. But you don’t scare me, Snow!” He just shakes his head at her. She switches tracks. “So, you had a nightmare and now you’re leaving me? Just like that?” He meets her eyes before looking away. Lightning breaks out in pale from her nose to her toes. He hesitates before continuing lacing his boots. “Are you coming back?”

Snow winces, but doesn’t answer her. Lightning realizes that she’s completely naked, and for the first time since he first walked through that front door, she feels awkward, exposed and vulnerable in her nudity. She snatches a blanket off the couch and wraps it around herself, needing some sort of shield between herself and him.

 _Stupid to ever let your guard down,_ her cynicism whispers.

_Not cynical. Rational. You should have known better. Now, you’re getting exactly what you deserve._

“Are you coming back?” She repeats. _Pathetic,_ the voice whispers. Lightning wants to cover her ears to block out the insidious voice, but what good would that do? “Or is this it? Answer me!”

“Light—“

“No! You don’t get to sound sad when you’re walking out of this apartment and refusing to tell me if you plan to come back. Are you walking out on me? Or going for a walk?”

“I need to think, Lightning!”

_Excuses and lies. Don’t fall for it again!_

“All I want to know is if you’re coming back here.” _You know he’s not. He realized his mistake, and now he’s fixing it._ “I’m not your prison warden, Snow. If you need to leave, that’s fine. But if you’re not coming back, I deserve to know.”

“I love you.”

“That’s not an answer.” _Isn’t it?_ She waits a few seconds more before realization sets in. “Oh! I guess that is my answer.”

She refuses to cry in front of him. If he’s going to panic, bolt, and throw away everything they have together, then that’s his choice. The last thing she wants is for him to stay with her to spare her feelings. If he doesn’t want to be here, then he should go.

Turning towards the bedroom, Lightning says, “Lock the door, please. I’ll see you when I see you.”

She steps into the bedroom, turning to close the door when he shoves it back open. He wraps his arms around her and whispers, “I’m coming home. I’m sorry. I just need—“

“That’s fine.” She wishes that she could believe him, but she doesn’t. _Good girl. Welcome back!_ Fear and anxiety gnaw at her gut. “Go clear your head. Just be careful.”

“I will.”

The sounds of him leaving nauseate Lightning. Dread knots up around her throat. Anxiety and misery swirl together in her stomach. As ridiculous and irrational as it may seem, Lightning feels certain that she isn’t going to see Snow again. Something about his exit from the apartment felt…final. It takes all her self-restraint not to chase after him and force him to come back home with her right now, but she knows that won’t do any good.

Lightning can’t make Snow return to her any more than she’d been able to make him stay away from her.

 _Any more than Serah had been able to make him stay_. _You always knew it would come to this. What the hell were you thinking?_

Lightning pulls on a pair of pajama pants and a tank top — the bed will be too cold without Snow — and forces herself to get back into bed, though she can’t bring herself to lay down. She glances over at the empty side of the bed and feels tears burn her eyes.

“You’re being stupid,” she tells herself.

_No. You’ve been stupid._

He said he’s coming back. No. He said he’s coming home! He called it home, meaning that he thinks of the place where she lives as his home. He’s not going to just disappear on her. Snow would never do that.

_Sure. Never. Except for the fact that he just did it to Serah._

She lays down, and reaches for the cold, empty space beside her.

“This is what you deserve,” she tells herself. She knows she deserves to be alone. She stole Serah’s happiness, and there’s part of her that’s been waiting for Snow to wake up and realize that he made a huge mistake when he chose Lightning.

And now he has.

Lightning pulls Snow’s pillow to her and buries her face in it.

 _Pathetic._ She knows she’s pathetic. She just doesn’t care right now. There’s no one here to see her weakness, so she spends a long moment indulging in her worst insecurities.

When she gets sick of her own weakness, she decides it’s time to pull herself back together again. If Snow doesn’t come back, she’ll deal with it, just as she’s dealt with every other loss in her life. Right now, she just wants to lay here and feel sorry for herself. Tomorrow, she’ll start building her life without him.

Lightning drifts to sleep, comforted by the familiar smells lingering on Snow’s pillow.

* * *

The sound of the door opening pulls Lightning from sleep. Relief floods her now that Snow is finally home.

Except…

 _It’s not Snow._ Lightning knows the sound of Snow’s footsteps, the patterns of his movements. He always takes off his boots at the front door, shrugs out of his trench coat, drops his keys in the basket on the desk, and moves almost silently— like the predator he pretends not to be— until he enters the bedroom. Once he crosses that threshold, Snow does everything in his power not to startle her. He whispers her name and pulls off his shirt while backlit in the doorway, determined to ensure that he doesn’t scare her.

After a year of living alone, having another person move around her home in the dark could easily scare her. But Snow never has.

Whoever the hell this intruder is, he’s still wearing his shoes. He closed the bedroom door behind him, and right now, he is slinking his way to her side of the bed. Lightning smells chemicals of some sort, and she knows that, even though her Edged Carbine is under her bed directly below her, she doesn’t have time to grab it. He’ll be on her before she can roll out of the bed and reach under it.

Her only chance is the knife she keeps between the headboard and mattress, but there’s always the chance that it shifted when she made love with Snow a few hours ago. If it’s not exactly where she put it, she’ll be unarmed when he climbs on top of her.

Either way, he’s going to be in for a big fucking shock if he thinks she’s not giving him a fight.

Her fingers brush, then close around the hilt of her hunting knife. She snaps the blade open as her attacker lands on top of her. Lightning brings the blade around in a large swipe, slicing his arm open, and cutting through his shirt. Hopefully, she got deep enough to draw blood there too.

“You fucking bitch!” The fist to the face doesn’t surprise her, but the rag over her nose and mouth does. “It’s over, honey pot. Just give it up.”

She struggles beneath the weight of her attacker, horror and unconsciousness both washing over her, until the darkness sucks her away.

* * *

A series of dull thumps penetrates the thick fog in Lightning’s brain. She summons as much of her concentration as possible to figure out the source of all the noise. Then she hears his voice.

“No! NO! _Lightning?_ LIGHT!”

Snow sounds panicked. Desperate, and Lightning can’t figure out why. She struggles against her own leaden body, wondering why opening her eyes feels like such a monumental task.

“So nice of you to join me, honey pot.” Memory slams into Lightning with the force of a sledgehammer. She’d been attacked in her bedroom — in her bed! — By the psychopath terrorist that she’d captured a few weeks ago.

_/Evil Henchman Number Two. I call him Number Two because, you know, he’s a piece of shit/_

Hands slide over her bare skin in a possessive and far too intimate manner. Lightning makes a sound of protest, but the gag in her mouth traps it behind her teeth.

“What’s ‘a matter, honey pot?” His finger strokes over her collarbone, down into her cleavage, before skating over her tank top. He slips it under the hem and traces up to her navel, circling, circling, before flicking at the piercing. The gesture is too precise and familiar to be an accident. Her captor’s lips brush her ear when he whispers, “I thought you liked being touched right here.”

She bucks and tries to roll away, but her hands are dead, tied too tightly behind her back, and her knees are bent so that she has no room to move. Attempting to straighten her legs snaps the noose around her neck taut, effectively strangling her.

“When lover boy tied me up, he forgot about this little trick,” Two says as he runs his finger under the noose around her throat. “I figured I’d show him how it’s done. I can’t wait to see the look on his face when he realizes that he can’t do anything except watch me take you apart piece by piece. Think he’ll beg this time?”

Two whistles a jolly tune as he moves around the room. Lightning can’t see what he’s doing, but every so often he pauses in his activities to put his hands on her. Never in a blatantly sexual manner, but always suggestive enough to remind her that he _could_.

And there’s nothing she can do to stop him.

Some kind of alert sounds off, and Two pauses in what he’s doing for a moment before growling, “This is complete fucking bullshit. You know this is bullshit you lazy pig.” Another alert sounds, and Two huffs out, “Fine. Fuck you both where you breathe.” Two lets out a long string of curses before kneeling down in front of her and saying, “Time’s up. Plan B it is. Sorry, Honey Pot. Your presence is required elsewhere. Looks like you drew the extra short straw.”

Lightning scans the room as best she can considering the limits imposed upon her by the restraints. Two dumps things into a box beside her, covers it and shoves it over. Once the box is out of Lightning’s field of view, she spots the chains and shackles bolted into the floor and wall on the other side of the room, and realizes with a dawning horror that this Psycho has prepared them to restrain Snow in order to force him to witness…whatever disgusting torment that he plans to inflict upon Lightning.

Lightning thrashes, cutting off her own air and not much caring. There’s no fucking way that she’s going to be used as a weapon against Snow. She’d rather kill herself right now, if only to spite this guy and ruin his plans.

“No, no, no. None of that, Honey Pot.” He tries to hold her still to prevent her killing herself, but she’s just as determined as he is. And while he’s being fueled by revenge and rage, she’s running on desperation and love. “Stop it! You’re going to kill yourself, you stupid cow!”

With a snarl, Two opens a knife, slips it between the noose and her neck and pulls upward, cutting both the rope and her skin. “Fine. You win. No noose.” He grabs a rag and soaks it in something before pressing it to the bloody gouge in her neck. “I hope that fucking burns, you cunt.”

It does, but she doesn’t care. He lifts the rag and presses it down again. “Not deep. You’ll live. For now.”

Lightning straightens her legs out, noticing the cramp in her lower back for the first time. The spasm brings tears to her eyes, causing a cascade of cramps from her shoulders to her toes. Lightning can actually see her toes spreading apart due to the spasm in the arch of her foot. Flexing that muscle causes her calf muscle to lock up. Attempts to alleviate that misery cause her hamstring to ball up into a rock. 

How long did he have her in that fucked up position? 

Two drops a huge duffel bag next to her, and she has a horrible feeling about what he’s going to do with it. “Alright, time to go, Honey Pot. You’ve got a date, and I have other plans.” He pulls out a syringe, taps it, grabs her arm and sticks it into her vein even as she struggles away. “You’re only hurting yourself by struggling. I’m giving you this injection whether you like it or not.”

Lightning waits for unconsciousness, but it doesn’t come. She looks over at him, confused, but he’s smirking at her with his head tilted to the side. “If I’d known he was going to change all my plans, I’d have done that before. Saved me a whole lotta time and trouble. Of course, it is pretty fun watching you struggle. Still haven’t figured it out yet, have you?” 

She blinks. Or thinks she does, but she can’t open her eyes again. “It’s a paralytic. Don’t panic, now. Wouldn’t want to throw up with that gag in your mouth, would you? That’ll just make everything worse for you. You’re still breathing. Just try not to hyperventilate. This is going to be a little stuffy.”

Lightning feels him lift her up, and slip her into the bag. He bends her legs, practically folding her in half in order to get her into the duffle. When the zipper closes, Lightning feels the panic nearly choke her.

“Just relax. Once we’re out of the building, I’ll open the bag again. Maybe.”

Lightning loses all semblance of reason, time or space. She’s trapped in the dark, hogtied and helpless. She’s never felt terror like this before. When she’d woken up on the floor of that disgusting dungeon with someone on top of her pulling at her clothing, Lightning had been nearly immobilized by her fear. But her body still responded to her commands. Her hands weren’t frozen from restricted circulation. Her muscles weren’t paralyzed by some horrible drug.

She’d been able to defend herself.

Right now, Lightning is completely helpless. This man can do anything he wants to her, and all she can do is let him. She has no idea how to deal with that knowledge.

Lightning loses track of everything for a while. She hears Snow yelling as if he’s standing right beside her, but that isn’t possible. She hears an engine starting, and feels the motion of a vehicle over a bumpy road, but that’s ridiculous. She hears a zipper, and feels a blast of cooler air hit her face.

“Not so much fun, huh? Well, you know what? This hasn’t been a whole lot of fun for me, either. I get stuck doing all the hard work, and they think they ought to reap all the benefits.” Lightning hears a snick, a crackle, and then a pungent smoke fills the air. A tickle in the back of her throat reminds her that coughing is out of the question, gagged as she is. She will never catch her breath, and will probably panic herself into unconsciousness or death.

“You know, I don’t even know how they knew. Tonight was a gift, and I took it. And you. So, the only possible way they could have found out, is if they’re spying on me. The fuckers.” His tone turns sarcastic when he says, “Where’s the trust?”

“You’re a pretty good listener, you know that, Honey Pot?” He chuckles at his own terrible joke. “That’s a good quality. Rare, too. Especially in females. Though to be fair, most men are too busy chasing after some cunt to bother really listening, either. I guess it’s just humans as a whole that are a complete waste of oxygen.” He takes a final drag of whatever the hell he’s smoking before opening the window and pitching the butt. “Don’t worry. We’ll be there real soon, and this’ll all be over. Of course, what comes next is going to make you wish you were still with me, but it’s too late for regrets now. We’re ships passin’ in the night, honey pot. The Boss wants Lover Boy, and you’re his ticket to ride. And I have another mission to attend to.” He pats her thigh through the bag. “I guess we just weren’t meant to be, Honey. But don’t be sad: you’ll be out of the sack soon. At least until we put you right back in it to send you home.”

This can’t be happening to her. She always knew she’d die violently, but she’d assumed that she’d be fighting when it happened. To be drugged, hogtied, and denied the warrior’s death that she’s fucking earned a thousand times over is beyond her comprehension. How the hell did he get into her home, past her security, without her hearing him?

Where’s Snow? He’s going to blame himself, and there’s nothing Lightning can do to stop it. These monsters are going to use her to hurt him.

And what about Serah? Lightning has so many regrets when it comes to Serah. She knows that she has no right to ask for Serah’s forgiveness, and no reason to expect that her sister would ever want to rebuild their broken relationship, but Lightning had still hoped.

Now, all Lightning hopes is for Snow and Serah to take care of one another. With Lightning gone, perhaps the two might reunite.

Of course, these maniacs are still targeting Snow, and by now, Lightning fears that they may have discovered Serah’s existence. Two just took Lightning right out of her own bed, beside which is a picture of Serah, Lightning and their parents. If this guy found out about Serah…

Lightning has to escape. Survive.

Some small, desperate part of her mind cries out for help.

* * *

Serah wakes up choking. Sitting up in her bed, Serah sucks in huge gulps of air trying to remember what terrors plagued her dreams, causing her to wake up soaked in a fetid sweat.

A sharp knock on her bedroom door heralds Lebreau’s entrance. “Serah?” Lebreau pokes her head into the bedroom. “Are you all right?”

“I don’t know.”

“Are you sick?”

“No. I had a nightmare.”

“Must’ve been some nightmare! Wanna talk about it?”

Serah shakes her head. “I don’t remember it. I just remember feeling like I was trapped, and couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t move. Like I was back in crystal stasis, you know?”

“Oh, honey!” _/Honey Pot/_ The endearment makes Serah balk and shiver, but she shakes it off. “Do you want some water?”

“No. I have. Thanks.”

“How about something stiffer? I have a brand new bottle of whiskey just begging for attention.”

Serah looks at the clock, and considers the wisdom of drinking at 4 am. It’s a bad idea. But… “Ah, what the hell!”

On her way to the living room, Serah’s eye lands on the picture of her and Claire, and it’s like an icy hand clamps over her mouth while another gropes at her in a horribly invasive manner. Serah feels nauseous and helpless, and suddenly, she desperately wants to hear her sister’s voice.

Of course, she can’t call Claire at such an ungodly hour. She’ll either scare her sister, or worse, end up talking to Snow, and that’s a possibility that she’s not ready to face. Besides, Serah is a grown woman. What could be more pathetic than running to her big sister because she had a nightmare?

Serah shakes her head at herself, determined to ignore the urge to call Claire. Her eyes slide to her communicator…

Well, it can’t hurt to send a message. Just to check in. After all, it has been a while since she spoke with Claire.

_Just checking in. Had a weird feeling. I miss you. I’ll call soon. Please be careful. -S_

* * *

Hope gropes for the clock beside his bed, desperate to make it shut up. He flails at it until he knocks it off the nightstand.

“Damn it,” he grunts, dragging himself from beneath his blankets. By the time he sits up in his bed, he realizes that it’s way too early for his alarm clock, even if he’d set the alarm. Which he hadn’t because why would he set an alarm? He has nowhere to go in the morning.

Hope gropes for his communicator in a panic. There’s literally no reason for any one of his friends to call him this early in the morning. The sun isn’t even up yet!

“Snow?”

“Light’s gone!” Snow says. “She’s fucking gone!”

“What?”

“Lightning is gone!”

“I’m sure she just—“

“There’s blood all over the bed and the room, and she’s gone, Hope. I’m not calling because she went to the store, or because we had a fight.”

“Where the hell were you?”

“I need Sazh’s number. I can’t remember it, and I need—“

“I’ll call Sazh. We’re all on our way.”

“She’s gone, Hope.”

“No. She’s not. Just…we’re on our way.”

It takes all Hope’s determination and strength to disconnect the call while Snow is so obviously desperate and panicked, but Hope knows that he needs to prioritize. Finding Lightning is the priority, and in order to do that, he needs his friends.

Hope calls Sazh, heart racing, gut churning, and head swimming with a barrage of horrors that Lightning may be enduring right this second. Or worse, had already endured, wondering in her final moments of torment where her friends were and why they’d abandoned her.

“Pick up. Come on, pick up!”

“Someone had better be dead! That’s the only reason I’ll accept for you calling me at this ungodly hour!”

“Lightning’s missing!”

The gruff tone disappears, and Sazh is all business when he asks, “When?”

“Snow just called. He’s frantic.”

“I’ll call Fang. Wake your daddy. I’m bringing Dajh over there. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes. Be ready.”

Hope exhales a huge breath, thankful beyond measure that Sazh understood the urgency of the situation. He dresses on autopilot, grabs his pack and heads to wake his father to explain what’s going on.

Sazh arrives thirteen minutes later, Fang and Vanille in tow. Vanille brings Dajh inside, charming his dad as easily as she’d charmed Hope himself the first time they’d met.

Bartholomew sends Hope off with a “be careful, son. I hope you find your friend.”

Three minutes later and the four of them are on their way to Light’s place.

_Snow and Light’s home._

Hope shakes his head. He doubts that he will ever get used to the idea of Lightning and Snow together, but right now, he’s grateful that the big jerk lives with Lightning. Who knows how long it would’ve taken to figure out she’d been abducted if Snow hadn’t been staying with her?

Hope can’t help wondering why Snow wasn’t there when Lightning was attacked in her own bed — the idea alone makes Hope’s blood boil — but it doesn’t really matter. Snow can’t reasonably be with Lightning every single second of the day. It’s not his fault that someone broke into her (their) home and attacked her. The only one to blame for that is the savage who hurt her.

“Lightning is fine,” Vanille whispers to Hope. “I’m sure of it.”

“Course she is, luv.” Hope wishes he couldn’t hear the concern and doubt in Fang’s voice.

“Tell me again what Snow said, Hope.”

Sazh doesn’t bother offering reassurances or platitudes. He radiates anxiety and worry, so much so that Hope is afraid that Snow might lose his shit the minute he gets one look at Sazh. Sazh is always the calm one; the voice of reason, and right now, he looks almost as disturbed and defeated as he did when Hope found him half-drunk after four hours of listening to Snow being tortured.

“Hope?” Sazh prompts.

“Uh, yeah. He said Light is gone. When I tried to reassure him, he said that there was blood all over the bed and the room. Then he said something like she didn’t go shopping, or leave because they had a fight. He wanted your number and couldn’t remember it.”

Sazh mumbles, “dumbass,” but it lacks any heat. At this point, Hope is pretty sure that Sazh uses ‘dumbass’ as a term of endearment for Snow.

“I told him we were on our way.”

“And we’re here,” Fang says as they coast to a stop in front of the building.

The apartment door is open, and Snow is on the couch with his head in his hands. Hope flinches at the look in Snow’s eyes.

Fang pulls herself up straighter, whole body vibrating with tension, but when she sits beside Snow on the couch, she’s all soft words and gentle touches. While Fang’s reassurances seem to work on Snow, all they do is ramp up the panic inside Hope. If Fang isn’t busting Snow’s balls, she must be worried. If Fang is worried, things are bad.

“What happened?” Fang asks. Snow just shakes his head and drops his face back into his hands. “Come on, Hero. Just the basics.”

“Lightning is gone.”

“Right, we got that. When did it happen?”

“I’m not sure. I wasn’t here.”

“Okay. How long were you gone for? All night? Were you at your place?”

“No! I was only gone for an hour. Maybe two. I’m not exactly sure, but it wasn’t long.”

“Where’d you go?” Hope asks and Fang shoots him a dirty look.

“I went for a ride. I needed to clear my head. Think.” Hope opens his mouth to tell Snow that he shouldn’t strain himself, but one look from Fang silences him.

Right. This isn’t the time to bust Snow’s balls.

“Okay, do you know around what time that was?”

“No. I woke up. I had a nightmare.” He looks embarrassed by the admission. “A really, really bad nightmare.”

“Happens to the best of us, Hero.” Fang rubs Snow’s back sympathetically. “And by the best of us, I mean me. Obviously.”

“Obviously,” Snow retorts, giving Fang a brief, wan smile. “It was really bad, and I needed to think. Lightning was upset.”

“‘Bout the nightmare?”

“Yes and no. She didn’t want me to leave.”

“Okay.”

“But I left her anyway.” Snow looks at Fang and whispers, “I left her alone, and now she’s gone.”

Fang puts her hand on Snow’s knee and squeezes. Hard. Hard enough to break through what Hope now realizes is shock. “We’re gonna find her. Right? We’re gonna find her, she’s gonna be fine, and whoever took her, is gonna fucking pay,” Fang promises.

“I swore that they’d never hurt her again.”

“We don’t know what happened. Don’t jump to conclusions.”

“There’s blood all over our bed and floor. The bed I left her alone in because I had a bad dream!” Snow clenches his fists in his hair hard enough for his knuckles to turn white. Hope knows that if he were closer, he’d be able to hear Snow’s hair tearing.

“Enough of that, now!” Fang grabs Snow’s wrists and squeezes until he relinquishes the death grip on his hair. Fang holds onto Snow’s hands, gets in his face and repeats, “Enough. Tearin’ out your hair isn’t gonna help Lightning. Breakin’ your own knuckles— what’d you punch, by the way? — is only gonna make your girl angry when she gets home. I have it on good authority that she’s quite fond of your hands.”

Hope doesn’t think much about Fang’s comment until he watches the unusually pale Snow turn crimson from his hairline right down to the V-neckline of his shirt. Once Hope gets the implication, his face burns so hot that he knows that he and Snow must have matching blushes.

Fang winks at Snow, chuckles and pats his hand. “Vanille, luv, think you can patch up the Hero for us? I’m pretty sure he busted up this hand, and I don’t want to deal with Sunshine bitching at me that we didn’t look after her man.”

Sazh walks to the bedroom door and flinches. Hope peeks around him and feels legitimately sick. Snow wasn’t exaggerating when he said there was blood everywhere. It looks like a murder scene in here, and now that he’s seen it, Hope is amazed at how calm and collected Snow actually is right now.

Sazh clicks on the lamp, which only makes the whole scene even more horrific. There’s a pool of drying blood on the floor and several blood trails all over the bedroom. 

It’s while his eyes are tracing one of those trails of blood spots that the light glints off something beneath the bed, catching Hope’s eye. 

“Wait a minute!” Hope shoves past Sazh, drops to his knees and pulls out Lightning’s knife. There’s blood on the blade. ”Maybe it’s not her blood. I mean, why would her attacker use her knife?”

Sazh nods at him. “True. It’s entirely possible that the soldier got a piece of him.”

“What are you talking about?” Snow asks from the couch. 

Hope brings the knife to Snow. “I found this on the floor. It’s got blood on it.”

“She keeps that in the bed,” Snow says, reaching for the knife. He winces at the blood on the blade, putting the knife down on the table and wiping his hands absently on his overcoat.

“Kinky.” Snow gives Fang a dirty look but otherwise ignores her comment.

“She keeps it between the headboard and the mattress. There’s no way the guy could’ve found it. Light must’ve pulled it out.”

What none of them say, but Hope is positive they’re all thinking, is that just because Lightning pulled out the knife, that doesn’t mean the guy didn’t take it from her and hurt her. After all, where the hell is she? If she’d been armed and fighting, then her attacker would be dead and she’d be here.

“Hey, Hero. Where’s Odin?”

“On the dresser.”

“No, he’s not. Are we sure that there’s no chance that the Soldier left under her own power?”

“What the hell do you mean, he’s not there?” Snow stalks into the bedroom and looks at the empty pedestal. “I swear that he was here when I got home! Where the hell did he go?”

“You’re probably just confused.”

“I would swear that I saw him right there when I came in.”

“You were upset. It’s an easy thing to miss, when you find this,” Sazh gestures at the room, “in your bedroom.”

“Well, maybe that means Light is okay, and took Odin with her,” Hope suggests.

“Kid, her weapon is still here. She wouldn’t go anywhere without her weapon.”

“So, whoever took her, took Odin, too?” Vanille asks. “Why?”

“Who cares? It doesn’t matter. Maybe he likes pretty rocks!” Fang snaps. “Anyone have any doubts about who took her, or are we all on the same page?” No one protests, so Fang goes on. “So, how the hell are we going to find her, then?”

Vanille clears her throat, and tugs on her ear. Fang exclaims, “You’re brilliant, luv! Oi, Hero! Is Lightning wearing a navel ring that looks like this?” Fang points to Vanille’s earring, then her own.

“Yeah. She’s been wearing it since you all got them. Why?”

“Good girl,” Sazh says, reaching into his inner pocket and withdrawing his locator.

“What the—?” Snow stammers. “Are you two saying that you lo-jacked my girlfriend?”

“We sure the hell did,” Sazh says. Hope wonders if Snow is angry right up until he hugs Sazh fast, clapping him on the back. Sazh shrugs him off, stammering, “All right, none of that now.”

When he turns to Fang she holds up a hand and warns, “Try it, and you lose a body part.”

“Thank you!” Snow puts both hands over his face for a moment, sighs a shaky breath, before asking, “What made you think to do it?”

“She knew the deal,” Fang says. “We were talking about how she’d felt like someone was watching her, and I told her she needed to take precautions.”

“And she agreed? Just like that?”

“Not just like that, no. But I can be very persuasive. And it didn’t hurt when Vanille and I got our own fancy locators, just in case they decide they’d settle for one of us. And I think you should get one too, Hero. Just sayin.”

“When did she feel like someone was watching her?” Hope asks.

“The night we had dinner at Sazh’s,” Snow answers. Fang, Vanille and Sazh all look at one another, and Hope gets a sick feeling in his gut. Snow looks back and forth between their friends. “What?”

“If it was just that night, she never would’ve agreed,” Vanille whispers.

“There were a few times. She didn’t want you worrying. You’d already changed the locks and the glass. She was convinced that she was spooking herself.”

“You weren’t,” Snow snaps. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me?”

“Because it’s not my business to tell you about your girl’s weird feelings. You two went through a lot of bullshit that neither one of you has dealt with yet. There was no obvious threat! Just an eerie feeling. Do you know how hard it was to convince her to wire herself up, just in case? If I went running to you, how long do you think it would’ve taken for her to throw it out, just to spite me?”

Snow swallows and nods before burying his face in his hands again, drawing Hope’s attention to the tremors running through Snow’s body. Hope pats Snow’s hunched back, and just like that, the hero mask is back in place, all traces of fear and vulnerability well hidden.

Except Snow’s fooling no one right now. He’s terrified. Hope lets his eyes wander over his friends for a moment. Hell, they’re all terrified.

“She did it for you, Hero. Because she didn’t want you to lose her, and then lose it. Besides, I think she was planning to use herself as bait—“

“What!?”

“—eventually. There was no plan. Just precautions, in case. That’s all. We wouldn’t have done that without telling you all.”

“Okay,” Snow says. “Whatever. I can’t worry about plans right now. And I can’t worry about her not telling me about feeling like someone was watching her. We knew that fucker was loose. It was wishful thinking to think he’d given up on us. I’ll deal with all of this shit after we get her back.”

“So?” Fang prompts. “Any luck?”

“Naw. This can’t be right.”

“Oh no!” Vanille gasps

“What? Where is she?”

“She’s right down the block.”

“He dumped her,” Fang blurts, slapping her hand over her mouth right after.

“Shut up!”

“Don’t say that!” Hope yells, horrified that Fang would dare say that aloud.

“Knock it off! She’s moving this way.”

Snow is out the door and halfway down the stairs before the rest of them reach the apartment door.

“Oi! Wait up!” Fang yells after Snow as he shoves through the front door of the building. Fang gives up on the stairs and just jumps the last two floors, hitting the foyer running, and disappearing out the front door only seconds behind Snow.

“Hell with that,” Sazh says, choosing to take the stairs. “I’m too old to go leaping off balconies and shit.” Hope is halfway over the railing when Sazh snatches him back saying, “I don’t think so, kid. You’re not breaking your neck on my watch.”

* * *

What feels like an eternity passes before Lightning feels a familiar tingle whisper along her skin. Almost immediately her captor lets out a string of invectives that would make even Fang blush. If Lightning could move at all, she would smile at the fear she hears in his voice.

“Oh, you’ve gotta be fucking kidding me!” The engine races, but the rear end of the car slips out, forcing Two to lose precious seconds regaining control of the vehicle. “Where did that thing come from?”

Those few lost seconds will cost him his life, Lightning knows. Her Eidolon is close. Very close. Close enough that Lightning can feel all the fine hairs on her body stand on end from the static charge of his rage.

“Fuck this,” he says. “Looks like you get a reprieve, Honey Pot. Enjoy the ride.” With that, he reaches over her, opens the door and shoves her out of the moving car.

Lightning hits the ground hard, air exploding out of her. The force of the impact is enough to tear her out of the bag, then out of most of her clothes, before scraping away layers of skin. Lightning is still hogtied and drugged, both of which render her incapable of bracing herself in any way. Her bad shoulder screams in agony and Lightning knows that this time, it’s not a simple subluxation; her joint has snapped somewhere at the collarbone. For a moment, Lightning fears that she may throw up, and then choke to death thanks to the gag that her captor stuffed into her mouth. It’s almost a relief when her head bounces off the ground with a wet crack, and she knows nothing at all.

* * *

For long weeks, Odin has drifted in a comfortable reverie, basking in his Lady’s quiet joy. Ever since the night the Warrior Lord arrived and finally claimed Odin’s Lady in body and soul, Odin has felt a peace unlike any he’s ever known. Until that night, Odin had feared that there was some defect in the eternal bond between his Lady and himself; that Odin himself was the cause of his Lady’s deep melancholy.

When the Warrior Lord arrived and claimed Odin’s Lady for his own, he vanquished all remaining traces of sadness lingering in their soul(s), and strengthened their bond simply by joining it.

Odin feels foolish for not realizing sooner that even though both Odin and his Lady had claimed the Warrior as their own, the Warrior Lord had not reciprocated. As such, the space in their bond and soul(s) reserved just for him, remained a raw, gaping wound.

Then the Warrior Lord arrived, claimed the Lady, slotted himself perfectly into the space that ached for him, and completed the bond.

And so, Odin has been well contented. His Lady no longer yearns all the time, and so, Odin no longer yearns all the time. The Warrior Lord happily indulges all his Lady’s wants, keeping her sated and well satisfied, and so Odin, too, is well-satisfied.

That is the nature of Gestalt.

Odin has spent long weeks drowsing in contentment, floating in a sea of warm, sticky ecstasy, chest full to bursting with love.

And then, it all shatters. One moment, Odin had been warm and gratified, and the next, he was filled with abject horror.

His Lady is terrified, and Odin is furious. Murderous, even.

Odin can feel his Lady begging for help, and even though she has not specifically called to him, Odin is certain that she expects him to heed the call. And answer her, he does.

He appears under the night sky, no lady in sight. He spends a moment getting his bearings, allowing the bond to lead him to his Lady. He feels the tug, turns and spies one of the machines that humans use as transportation ( _human machines_ , Odin thinks with distaste) and knows that his Lady is inside it.

Unwillingly.

Odin is fast on two legs, but nowhere near as fast as he is on four. While he doesn’t usually take the form of Sleipnir unless his Lady is there to ride upon his back, he makes an exception. A moment later he is charging at full speed after the vehicle, Zantetsuken clutched firmly between his teeth.

As he closes the distance, he takes his true form, sending a Thundaga spell past the vehicle, toppling a tree so that it blocks the path.

Odin readies Zantetsuken, but he’s underestimated this Trickster Snake. One of the vehicle’s doors opens, and a large satchel hits the roadway, bounces, opens, rolls and rolls, spilling its contents all over the road.

Odin had forgotten the taste of fear until that moment.

His Lady strikes the ground with enough force to break her shoulder. The coarse asphalt catches on her skin and clothes, tearing them both to shreds as she slides along it, spilling her precious lifeblood all over the ground and herself. But it’s when her skull smacks against the ground that Odin panics, thinking that he has failed in his duty, for he can feel the agony of her skull fracturing, and sense both consciousness and life fading.

It takes less than a second to fall to his knees beside her. He cradles her broken head in his palm, digs deep within himself, and pours all his magic into her, fearing it will not be enough.

An eternity later, Odin opens his eyes to find his Lady’s head whole once again. He cuts her bindings, straightens her bent limbs, and fills her with even more of his magic.

By the time he is drained, his Lady is no longer on the verge of death. Her skeleton feels whole, and the large swaths of skin that had been shredded by the ground, are healed. What little strength he has left he must use to bear her home.

When the Lady opens her eyes and speaks his name, Odin feels dizzy with relief. She recognizes him. She is still herself, and that is all that matters.

“My loyal knight,” she whispers. “You saved me.”

She closes her eyes, losing consciousness again, but Odin worries not for her. The Lady woke, spoke and recognized him unprompted. Odin had not failed her. Her mind is whole. Odin knows that it will take time for her to come to herself again, but she is still alive, still herself, still with him, and that is all that matters to Odin.

Odin lifts his unconscious Lady into his arms, cradles her limp, bloodied body against his chest, and begins walking. Though he is pledged to his Lord, he has no bond to follow. He can get a vague sense of his Eidolith’s resting place — his home in this realm, for lack of a better term — and so he walks in that direction, knowing that his Warrior Lord will find them soon enough.

* * *

Lightning is stunned when she regains consciousness. The first thing she notices is that she’s no longer tied up. Then she realizes that she can move. She shifts, groans at the aches and pains that sound off through her body, and a big hand lands in the middle of her chest to hold her still.

Lightning peels her eyes open to see Odin kneeling over her. “My loyal knight,” she whispers, and Odin nods to her. She reaches up with a cold, swollen, bloodless hand, touches his face and whispers, “You saved me.”

Odin scoops her up and begins walking along the roadway. She knows that he must’ve healed her, because she’s pretty sure that being shoved out of a moving vehicle at high speeds should’ve killed her, or at least, caused serious bodily injuries. Her arms had been tied behind her, feet tied together as she bounced along the ground over and over.

Her worst injuries may be healed up, but she still feels like someone beat the crap out of her, drugged her, and shoved her out of a car. The freezing cold wind slithers under and inside the shredded remnants of her pajamas, burning the virgin skin that covers large swaths of Lightning’s body. In a desperate search for warmth, Lightning curls up both into herself and Odin, to no actual avail. Whatever magic may animate Eidolons does not bestow upon them any sort of body heat. Still, Odin cradles her closer to his chest, a gesture for which Lightning is grateful. The Eidolon’s body may be too cool to bestow any warmth upon her, but his size alone offers shelter from the cruel winds that continue to lick at her exposed flesh. From the safety of Odin’s arms, Lightning gazes up at Pulse’s night sky, so different from the false skies of Cocoon. The stars overhead scintillate and spin far too quickly for it not to be a sign that she has a fucking concussion, or enough of the remnants of one to cause her head to swim.

Hurting, nauseated, freezing, but safe in Odin’s arms, Lightning closes her eyes, and gives herself over to unconsciousness.

* * *

By the time Sazh, Vanille and Hope shove their way through the door, Fang and Snow are three blocks away, running full tilt toward a very familiar figure.

“Well, that solves that mystery,” Sazh grumbles. “Come on, Kid. Let’s get the truck and bring it down there.”

The three of them climb up onto the front bench seat of the truck. Somehow, Hope gets stuck riding bitch between a grumbling Sazh and a fidgeting Vanille. They manage to pull the truck up alongside their friends just as Odin reaches the group with an unconscious, bloody Lightning hanging in his grip.

“Oh no,” Hope whispers, nearly falling out of the truck. “Light…”

”Oh God!” Snow gasps, as he shrugs out of his coat and spreads it out on the ground. “Here,” he says. Odin drops to one knee, placing Lightning on the coat with as much care as a mother might take with her newborn infant.

“Okay, I gotcha now, baby. You’re okay. You’re safe, now.” Snow pulls her arms through the coat’s sleeves, folds the sides across her body and lifts her into his arms before Hope even gets a look at where all the blood is coming from.

Snow looks up at Odin and whispers, “Thank you.” Odin nods at him before turning away. “Wait! Did you kill him?”

Odin shakes his head and points in the direction that he’d been coming from. Then he’s gone.

 _So weird_. Hope will never get used to that little trick, no matter how many times he sees it.

“I’m goin’ hunting,” Fang says, and starts running. Hope squints into the growing winds, watching as Bahamut lands, crushing a downed tree beneath his massive feet. Bahamut roars as Fang leaps onto his back, and the two disappear into the sky.

Hope prays that she finds the animal that attacked Lightning, but knows that the chances are slim. Lightning looks tiny and broken in Snow’s arms, and Hope can’t help but ask: “She’s alive, right?”

Snow stares down at the bundle in his arms for a too long moment. “Yeah, she’s alive. She’s too cold, though.”

“Get her in the truck, Hero. It’s warmer in there.” Sazh climbs up into the cab of the truck and turns up the heat.

Hope opens the back door and climbs in to help Snow pull Lightning up into the truck. Her face is too pale, which only makes the fresh bruise on her cheek look even blacker. Hope presses two fingers to her throat, reassured by the strong, steady pulse beating away beneath his fingers.

She’s fine. She’s just knocked out. She’ll be fine.

She has to be fine.

Hope’s fingers come away sticky with blood, and he has to bite back a shout. He knows that she’s alive. Wherever the blood came from, it’s likely superficial. Panicking will not help Lightning or Snow right now.

“Hope, ride up front with me,” Vanille says, and Hope slips out the other back door as Snow climbs up into the backseat with Lightning.

Hope knew that Snow and Lightning were together, but he hadn’t really understood exactly what that meant until he saw Snow tonight. The devastated look in Snow’s eyes hurts Hope’s heart. What’s bizarre is that Hope has seen this very look on Snow’s face many times before, and just never realized what he was seeing.

Snow has been in love with Lightning for a very long time. Maybe since the beginning. And Hope can’t help but think that Lightning has felt the same way for almost as long. The thought recontextualizes a great deal of Hope’s memories, and he knows that he has a lot to think about. But right now, watching Snow and Lightning hurt is too painful for him, so instead he looks at Vanille.

Even though Vanille isn’t his, the thought of losing her again, even for a few long, terrifying hours, makes Hope feel sick inside. He can’t imagine how Snow is holding it together right now. If it were Hope, all he’d want is a few minutes of privacy so he could just lose his shit without everyone staring at him.

Vanille takes Hope’s hand in hers and holds on tight, giving him a soft smile. He can see the tears in her eyes, before she blinks them away. Then, she’s her beaming, beautiful self again.

He knows that she still sees him as a kid, but he has time now. She’s back, and in a few years, he won’t be a kid anymore. He just has to make sure he doesn’t lose her before that happens.

Hope spins around when a soft groan drifts out of the back of the truck. Snow whispers, “That’s it, Light. Open your eyes.”

“Snow?” Lightning croaks. Hope flinches at the tiny, unfamiliar voice.

“Hey. Hey, there you are!”

“Where—?”

“Sazh’s truck.”

“Sazh?”

“Glad you could join us, Soldier.”

“What—?”

“Just relax. We’re almost home.”

 _“…home!”_ She sighs.

“That’s right, baby. We’re going home.” Snow whispers into Lightning’s hair, and Hope has to look away. He feels like he’s spying on a very private moment.

Sazh parks as close to the entrance as possible. Sazh opens the back door for Snow, backs away and waits for him to climb out. Hope steps forward to help, but Vanille grabs his arm and shakes her head. The three of them end up watching as Snow gathers Lightning to his chest and carries her back home.

By the time they get upstairs, Lightning is mostly conscious again. Vanille disappears into the kitchen to make tea for everyone, and Snow disappears into the bathroom to grab the medkit.

“I’m okay, Hope,” Lightning rasps, voice hoarse, calling attention to the thick bruise ringing her entire neck.

“You don’t look okay.” She looks terrible is what Hope doesn’t say.

“Thanks.” Hope knows that Light had been aiming for sarcasm, but her dazed look and willowy voice undermine her efforts.

Sazh sits in the armchair, folds his hands together and asks, “So, you wanna tell us what happened tonight?”

Vanille puts the tea service on the table and then disappears into the bedroom. Lightning’s eyes are glazed as they follow Vanille, kicking up Hope’s anxiety. She looks spacey.

Dazed.

Drugged.

 _Bastard_!

Snow sits next to Lightning, presses an ice pack against her bruised face, places her hand against it, and whispers, “Hold that there.”

Lightning complies without comment, which only makes Snow look more miserable. Hope’s eyes trace the obvious ligature mark circling Lightning’s pale throat. Unlike the ones on her wrists, this one hasn’t cut into her skin enough to draw blood.

Snow touches the ugly bruise with gentle fingers, before tracing over what looks to be three or four small, faint bruises running up the side of her neck. Finger marks, Hope guesses. Snow shakes his head, curses, before becoming all business again. His hands tremble as he cleans and bandages a long, ugly cut on Lightning’s neck. It doesn’t appear to be deep, but considering how close it is to the artery, it wouldn’t really have to be.

“What happened to your neck, Light?” Hope asks, receiving a blank stare as a reply. 

Snow moves onto Lightning’s wrists, cleaning and bandaging her where the restraints cut into her flesh. He takes a moment to rub her swollen fingers, likely in an effort to promote circulation. “Your hands are freezing, baby.”

“I’m okay.” Snow closes his eyes, but doesn’t comment.

“That’s a nasty bruise, Soldier.” Sazh gestures to the side of his own face for clarity. _One of many,_ Hope thinks. “How’d you get it?” The look in Sazh’s eyes is murderous, but his voice is all gentle patience. 

Lightning looks confused, and it’s worrying Hope. Her eyes flicker around the room as if she has no idea where she is.

“Where’s Fang?” 

“Don’t worry about Fang,” Snow says, looking her over. Hope knows that Snow needs to get Light out of that coat in order to do a thorough check, but Lightning clings to it like a lifeline. “Where else are you hurt, baby?”

“I’m okay,” Lightning insists, but when she releases the coat and lifts her teacup, her hand shakes so hard that Snow snatches the cup from her before she can scald herself with the hot tea. 

“Light—“

“I’m just tired, Snow.”

Sighing in defeat, Snow runs both hands over her head, searching for bumps. “Did you get knocked over the head, Lightning?”

“I don’t think so.” She reconsiders. “But…uh…maybe I hit it when I fell.”

“Fell?”

“Yeah. I think I fell down. I remember hitting the ground.” She closes her eyes, resting her face in the palm holding the icepack. “I think he pushed me.”

Snow clenches his jaw, swallows, and then prompts, “Pushed you?”

“Maybe. Maybe that didn’t happen.” She looks at Snow and says, “I’m sorry. Nothing makes much sense right now.”

Shaking his head, Snow swallows, sniffs, and clears his throat before saying: “No, it’s okay, baby. Don’t worry about it.”

Sazh speaks up: “Your eyes are like black holes. Did someone drug you?” 

Lightning considers the question for a long moment before nodding. “Yeah?” Then, with more certainty: “Yes.” She lifts her arm, pulls up the sleeve of Snow’s coat, and Hope spies the angry red mark ringed with a vague blue bruise.

Snow swears, pulls out antiseptic wipes and cleans the messy injection site as best he can. “Motherfucker,” Snow mumbles.

“Any idea what he dosed you with, Soldier?”

Lightning shakes her head in a vague approximation of a no, before saying, “No….wait! Maybe?” Meeting Sazh’s eyes, she says, “I couldn’t move. At all.”

“So, you were conscious?”

“Sometimes?” She looks distressed as she turns to Snow and says, “I’m sorry. It’s all just a jumble right now. I don’t know why I can’t—”

“Okay, that’s enough. Don’t worry about it. Just lay down and rest for a bit, Light. All right?” Lightning lays down and curls into herself, pulling Snow’s trench coat even tighter around herself.

“I’m sorry,” she repeats. _“…sorry.”_

“Don’t apologize. You have nothing to be sorry about,” Snow insists. Snow moves the ice pack to the table, shakes out one of the knit throw blankets and covers Lightning.

Desperate to do something, Hope takes the ice pack to the kitchen and pops it back in the freezer. Hope has seen Lightning severely injured before; hell, she’d been nearly dead when he and Sazh found her in the snow a few weeks ago. This is the first time that she’s ever appeared to be vulnerable. Fragile. Damaged.

What the hell happened to her? What did they _do_ to her?

Shaking his head to abolish the horrible conjectures, Hope dashes away his tears, splashes water on his face, takes a deep, fortifying breath and returns to the living room.

Snow paces the living room like a caged animal, fists clenching and unclenching. When his eyes land on Lightning, his whole demeanor changes, and all Hope can see in Snow’s eyes is devastation.

Hope presses his fingers into his eyes, determined to keep his tears at bay. Snow and Light have spent the past year being strong for him; he owes it to them to keep it together so he can help them through this nightmare. 

Vanille walks out of the bedroom with a black garbage bag. “Everything is cleaned up. I changed the bedding, cleaned up everything that could be cleaned, and got rid of everything else. I’m going to throw this away on our way out.”

Snow stops stalking through the apartment and offers Vanille a genuine smile. “Thank you, Vanille. I really appreciate the help.” Vanille blushes the most fetching shade of pink, nods and smiles back. “I should’ve thought of that.” 

“I’m happy to help out, Snow. At least this is something I could do to make things a bit easier on you. You’ve both been through so much.” Vanille turns to Sazh and says, “Sazh, can you come in here for a minute?”

“Sure thing,” he says. He pats Lightning’s shoulder as he stands up. “Hero? Check her ankles for more ligature marks,” he suggests, before disappearing into the bedroom with Vanille. Hope’s eyes immediately land on the bare foot sticking out from the blanket. There are streaks of blood down the sides and across the top. The sole is dirty, but undamaged, which means the blood had to come from somewhere else. Sazh’s guess is probably a good one. 

Hope watches Snow kneel beside the couch, but is distracted when Sazh swears, loud and colorful, at something in the bedroom. Deciding to give Snow some privacy (he looks like he’s going to cry, and Hope really doesn’t want to see it), Hope retreats to the bedroom to see what is going on.

“I can’t believe this,” Sazh says, staring into the bedroom closet.

“What is it?”

“The Hero is going to lose his mind.”

“What?” Hope asks, walking over and looking into the open closet.

A hole. There’s a huge hole in the wall that goes right through into the apartment next door.

“This is how he got in?”

“She felt like someone was watching her. She was right. That son of a bitch was right next door. Who knows how many times he’s been in here with her?” 

“How did you find this?” Hope asks.

“I followed one of the blood trails to the closet and found the fake wall. I didn’t understand how there could be so much blood in here, but nothing through the living room. There were blood spots down the stairs, and I noticed some outside the neighbor’s apartment. I didn’t think much of it at the time, because the guy could’ve stumbled into the door or something. But that didn’t explain why there was nothing in the rest of the apartment.” 

“People always underestimate you, luv,” Fang says from the doorway. “You fool them all into thinking you’re harmless, but you’re every inch the Oerban warrior I am.”

Vanille gives Fang the most dazzling smile Hope has ever seen.

Sazh is rigid with rage when he says: “Please tell me you found this psycho.”

Fang slumps, looks down and shakes her head once. “No. I knew it was a long shot. Who knows when Odin actually found her, or how far he’d been carrying her. My guess is that the guy went to ground as soon as Odin got our girl back. He had to know he was a dead man if he didn’t.”

Hope knows that Fang is right. He can only assume that Odin had to make a choice between saving Lightning and going after her attacker. That’s not a choice, in Hope’s opinion. (Obviously, Odin agreed.) 

“Well, look-y who found his way home,” Fang says, walking over to the dresser. “Back where you belong, eh, White Knight?” 

“The Hero ought to get Odin a nicer pedestal. Maybe lined with velvet. Cushioned, like a big ol’ pillow.”

“If he was right there, how did that guy get out of the apartment with Lightning? I mean, shouldn’t he have seen what was happening?”

“He’s not a guard dog, is he now?” Fang snarks. “It’s a frigging rock.”

“Fang!”

“What? It’s true, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know if that’s how it works, kid.” Sazh says. “I’m pretty sure that they can feel when we need them. I don’t know that they’re actually looking at us from inside those rocks. In fact, I’m not even sure the rocks are them. I always assumed that they were more like gateways for them. A way to quickly connect to here from wherever the hell they usually are.”

“Interesting,” Fang comments. “And where did you learn any of that?”

“It was a long journey across Pulse last year, and it’s been a long, cold winter. I’ve done a whole lot of reading.”

“Can I borrow some books, Sazh?” Hope’s a bit annoyed that Sazh has been holding out on him all year.

‘’’Course you can, kid. I didn’t want your daddy accusing me of trying to fill your head with occult nonsense. A lot of these are books and scrolls I pulled out of the library in Taejin’s Tower.”

“What’s goin’ on in here?” Snow asks, looking annoyed and exhausted.

Hope and Vanille both give Sazh expectant looks, and he grumbles and says, “We found something you’re not going to like, Hero.”

“What else is new?” Snow grumbles. “What is it?”

Sazh moves aside and points into the closet. “This.”

“What the fuck—?”

“The guy has obviously been staying next door.” Snow shakes his head in the negative, but Hope can tell that it’s just horrified denial and not disagreement. “He came in through the closet while she was asleep.”

Snow pales so quickly that Fang puts a hand on his shoulder to brace him. Hope can see the tremors running through his body, and by the way he’s rapidly blinking his eyes, Hope would bet that his head is swimming.

“She felt like someone was watching her.” Snow gropes around until his hand grips the dresser. “He was in here.”

“Or he was watching her through the peephole of the neighbor’s door.”

“Who knows how many times this guy crept in and out of here?!”

“Look, we’re going to seal this up right now, then we’ll reinforce it.”

“This guy isn’t gonna come back to this place. It’s burned now. He had a chance, he took it, and he blew it. As much as it pains me to say it, this guy is too good not to know that he’s gotta start all over again.” Fang drags her fingers through her windblown hair, heaves a huge breath and says, “But he may have left something behind that’ll help us find him. I’m gonna search the place.”

With that, she disappears through the hole into the apartment beyond.

Snow rubs his brow with one hand while the other clenches and unclenches at his side. He keeps looking around the room, closing his eyes and shaking his head, horrified at whatever memories run through his mind.

“Hero?”

“Did Light say anything about what happened?”

Snow shakes his head. “She’s still dazed and shaky. I don’t know what the hell the guy gave her or did to her—“

“She’s home and safe,” Vanille reminds him. “Whatever happened, that’s still the most important thing.”

“Damn right, it is,” Sazh concurs. “Look, Hero, let’s just concentrate on what we can do, and seal up this hole.”

Snow startles Hope when he turns to him and asks, “Hey, Hope, would you mind sitting with Lightning for me? She’s so confused—“

“Yeah, sure. Of course. Anything you need.”

“Thanks, kid.”

* * *

_Snow._

Her mind must be playing tricks on her, because all her senses insist that the person holding her is Snow. She can smell him, hear his heartbeat, feel his arms wrapped around her. She knows the feel of his skin as well as she knows her own, knows exactly what his stubble feels like against the skin of her neck, what his voice sounds like when it vibrates through his chest. What his clothes smell like after he wears them for a day.

Her whole body insists that Snow is right here, but that can’t be. Snow left and someone took her away, and she was never going to see Snow again. They’re going to take her apart, and send the pieces of her back to him in the same canvas sack that they used to take her away from him. 

“That’s it, Light. Open your eyes.” She wants to, but her head feels like it’s exploding. Still, she wants so badly to see him. 

“Snow?”

“Hey. Hey, there you are!”

“Where—“

“Sazh’s truck.” 

“Sazh?” _What is Sazh doing here?_

“Glad you could join us, Soldier.”

“What—” _happened?_

“Just relax. We’re almost home.” 

_“…home!”_ She sighs. Hearing that word from Snow fills her with a sense of warmth, peace and safety. She closes her eyes and relaxes into Snow’s embrace. 

“That’s right, baby,” Snow whispers into her hair. His lips brush her forehead, fingers combing her hair away from her face. “We’re going home.”

* * *

Everything is a giant blur to Lightning for…she doesn’t even know how long. That’s because time itself means very little to her. She’s aware of the arm beneath her knees and the other behind her shoulder blades and around her back. Her vision is still blurry, which makes her stomach flip, so Lightning keeps her eyes shut and presses her face into Snow’s collarbone as he climbs the stairs.

Snow keeps up a soft litany of reassurances that would ordinarily piss Lightning off, but for which she is too grateful to convey, right now. His voice helps her focus on here and now, where before she kept spiraling out.

Nothing makes much sense to her. Her mind is filled with images that just don’t match up to one another. Her last solid memory is of Snow leaving the apartment in what felt like a strangely final moment.

Then there’s a whole lot of blur, punctuated by pain and terror, all culminating with the certainty that she was safe enough to let go.

And so she’s home, but she doesn’t know how she got here when she is pretty sure that someone managed to catch her off guard and take her right out of her bed. Snow sits beside her, speaking to her in hushed, worried tones, except she remembers Snow leaving in the middle of the night.

Hope is here, too, staring at her with big eyes, filled with fear. Sazh is staring at her. Vanille hands her a teacup.

“Where’s Fang?” She asks because it seems like the thing to do. Everyone is here, but Fang is conspicuously absent.

“Don’t worry about Fang,” Snow insists, and then Lightning drifts a bit. Snow and Sazh ask her questions, but she can’t answer them. Her mind is a jumbled, disorganized mess.

She’s pretty sure that she tells Snow that she’s sorry at some point, and knows from the look in his eyes that it was the wrong thing to say.

“Just lay down and rest a bit, Light. All right?” Snow whispers, drawing a blanket over her, and she does as he suggests.

She drifts for a while, listening to the voices of her friends. The words are meaningless to her, but the tone and cadence of their voices comfort Lightning.

“Make it stop,” she groans, unsure what she even wants or to whom she is even speaking.

“Make what stop, baby?” Snow whispers. “Am I hurting you?”

Lightning has no idea why Snow thinks he’s hurting her. Is he even touching her? A quick peek through burning eyes brings Snow into view: he’s beside the couch, wasting everything in their medkit on the superficial cuts and scrapes on her ankles.

“No. You make me feel good.”

“Okay. So, what do you want me to stop, Light? I’ll do anything you need.”

“I don’t know. I don’t remember. I’m sorry.”

“Nope. That’s okay, Light. Just get some sleep, alright? I’m going to go see what our friends are doing.”

“Okay.” Snow presses his lips to her forehead before he goes… away. Lightning shivers, feeling a malevolent gaze on her. She whispers, _“Make it stop.”_

* * *

All the anxiety of the night catches up to Hope as he sits in the chair beside a sleeping Lightning. All the unanswered questions are making Hope nauseous, and his mind insists on betraying him by conjuring up the darkest suppositions.

What could possibly have happened to Lightning to render her so vulnerable? Lightning is one of, if not the, strongest person that Hope knows, and yet tonight, all of that inner strength was conspicuously absent. She hadn’t even been able to answer simple questions, and Hope can’t imagine what could strip Lightning of so many of her defenses, but he knows it must have been horrific. And that thought alone, makes him burn with rage.

Hope is so lost in his own musings that he doesn’t hear Fang come in the room until she plops down on the floor beside him and says, “Hey there, kid!”

“Don’t sneak up on me!”

“Wasn’t sneaking. I walked right in the front door.” Fang’s amused look fades as she asks, “so, how’s she doin’?

“Don’t know. She doesn’t know what happened to her.”

Fang winces. “That’s not great.”

“Ya think?” Fang raises an eyebrow at him that makes him wilt. “What could have happened to her?”

“Lotsa things can scramble your brains, kid. Head injuries. Drugs. Trauma. Any combination of the three, and probably other things that I can’t think of right now. Hell, even magic can fuck a person up good and proper like. And I’d guess that our girl here received large doses of all of the above, tonight.”

Just then, Lightning twitches, shifts, and startles awake. Fang wastes no time beaming at her, leaning in and saying, “Hey there, Sunshine! How ya feelin’?

“Fang?”

“The one and only.”

“When did you get here?”

“Just now,” she lies. “Stopped by to see how you’re feelin’. Hear you had a rough night.”

“Yeah. I did.”

“Wanna tell me ‘bout it?”

“Someone hit me.” Lightning touches her bruised, swollen face. “Tied me up, I think. I remember being in a lot of pain, stuffed into a small, dark space. I couldn’t move, or breathe. And I remember being pushed, and falling, and hurting. That’s really all I can remember.”

“That’s more than she remembered before,” Hope whispers.

“That’s good, then. Means that she just needs to sleep it off.”

“Is Snow home?”

“‘Course he is, buttercup. Want me to get him?”

“No. That’s okay. I just...I thought he was gone. That he left. But nothing makes much sense. My memories are all mixed up.” Lightning touches shaky fingers to her brow. _“My head…”_

“You said you were drugged,” Hope prompts. “Do you remember that?”

“Yeah,” she whispers, covering her nose and mouth with her hand. “He put a rag over my face. Some kind of chemical. Knocked me out.”

Fang looks at Hope and he shakes his head. “That’s different. He gave you some kind of injection too, right?”

Lightning nods, fingers running over the spot on her arm. “Yeah. I couldn’t move.” She looks at Fang. “I couldn’t move at all.”

“Paralytic?” Fang asks and Lightning’s eyes focus. In that moment, she looks like herself.

“Exactly. That’s what he called it. He said he waited until I was conscious to inject me because he wanted to see me squirm. That was the fun of it.”

“Right. And the rag was soaked in chloroform. That only lasts a short while.”

“Is that why my mind is so jumbled up?” Lightning asks, eyelids drooping. “Why my head hurts?”

“Don’t think so, buttercup,” Fang says. “Just rest for now, okay? I think you’ll be right as rain in the morning.”

“…rain,” Lightning whispers. “Odin. Odin found me.”

Fang nods, running her fingers through Lightning’s hair to soothe her to sleep. “I know he did, Sunshine. Regular White Knight, he is.” Once Lightning’s breathing evens out, Fang picks up a bag that Hope hadn’t noticed, and walks into the kitchen with it. Minutes later, Vanille follows her, and the two of them speak to one another in tones too low for Hope to hear.

* * *

While Fang and Vanille trade secrets in the kitchen, Hope leaves Lightning sleeping on the couch to check the progress in the bedroom. Sazh and Snow have managed to cover the hole with plywood and rebar (why the hell does Snow have so much rebar?) and it looks as though they’re putting everything away.

“You know,” Snow mumbles, “when I came home and found all the blood, for a second, I thought I’d done it.”

“What? Why the hell would you ever think that?”

“I told you, I had a nightmare. What I didn’t tell you, is that I woke up not knowing where I was, or who was touching me.”

“Ah,” Sazh says, obviously picking up on something that is lost on Hope.

“I had to leave because I was terrified that I could’ve killed her.”

“Come on—"

“I just attacked. All I knew is that I didn’t want anyone touching me anymore.”

“You were dreaming about—“

“Yeah. That’s the first time. I don’t know why…”

“Maybe because you’ve been preoccupied. Or because you did a real good job burying all the pain and fear. Whatever the reason, it was only a matter of time. You had to know that.” Snow shakes his head once, but it’s half-hearted at best. “I can’t imagine you didn’t have your share of nightmares last year.”

“Sure. I had nightmares constantly. But I never came up swinging. I was never afraid of hurting…Serah.”

“Well, forgive me, Hero, but you weren’t tortured last year.” Snow flinches. “Look, you don’t have to talk to me about it. You don’t have to talk to the Soldier about it. But you should talk to someone about it. I don’t think it’ll go away on its own.”

“Light didn’t want me to leave because she thought I wasn’t going to come back.”

That shocks Hope. He can see his surprise mirrored on Sazh’s face. “Was that a possibility? I mean, were you thinking of staying gone?”

“Of course I was! I woke up with my hand around Lightning’s throat. I was and am still worried that I’m a threat to her safety.”

“But you came back.”

“Yeah. And when I walked in and saw the empty bed, I thought that she’d left me. I mean, Lightning runs when she’s confused. Or scared. But then I smelled the blood. And when I clicked on the lamp, I closed my eyes and tried to wake myself up. It had to be a nightmare. It just had to be. Because otherwise, I killed her.”

“Look, Snow—“

“You don’t need to say anything. There’s really nothing you can say that will make me feel better about any of this.”

“I’m going to say this anyway. You didn’t hurt her. You didn’t do anything wrong. You needed some air, you took a ride, and then you came home.”

“I left her alone—“

“And if you hadn’t left tonight, it would’ve been some other time. Maybe when she was in the shower while you were in the living room. Maybe while you went out and she was taking a nap. Maybe when she got a midnight snack while you slept right here. Blaming yourself isn’t going to do you or her any good. You need to listen to her. Don’t make her worry about your misplaced guilt right now. Let that shit go. You have enough real shit to deal with right now.”

Fang clears her throat before saying, “And if that isn’t the perfect lead in to what I have to say, I don’t know what is.”

Snow and Sazh both startle at the interjection. Snow narrows his eyes at Hope and says, “I thought I asked you to sit with Light.” Hope blushes, realizing that he’s been caught eavesdropping.

“Vanille is sitting with her right now. We all need to talk.” Fang closes the bedroom door behind her to emphasize how serious she is.

“What’d you find?” Sazh asks.

“Nothin’ good, that’s for sure.”

“How specific!” Snow snaps.

“Come on, Fang. It’s not like you to pull your punches.”

“Yeah, well, maybe I don’t much feel like punchin’ a man while he’s down right now.”

“Look…whatever it is, I need to know.”

“Okay. So, I found a bunch of drugs in there. A couple we already knew he used—“

“We did?”

“Yeah. Light woke up and remembered a bit more,” Hope offers.

Snow rakes his hands through his hair and sighs. “That’s good. Hopefully, she’ll feel more like herself after she gets sleep.”

“Yeah, that’s what I’m thinkin’,” Fang agrees. “So, there’s the chloroform, and the paralytic. But there’s a few other nasties that he had, too. One is a hypnotic, which could explain why she’s so dazed. The other two are pretty popular on the party scenes, one, for pure recreational purposes; the other, is more popular among the bottom feeders and absolute scum who like slippin’ it into their target’s drink in order to knock ‘em out.”

“A date rape drug?” Sazh surmises, to which Fang only nods.

“Yeah. A real charmer, he is!” Snow’s face is so red that Hope can’t help but worry that he’s going to burst a blood vessel in his brain or something. Fang tries to calm him down by saying, “Look, Hero, she didn’t mention anything but the chloroform and the paralytic, but I brought ‘em all here in case she wants to get checked out later. I don’t know how long they take to metabolize, but stop worrying about what didn’t happen, and isn’t ever going to happen. Let’s just focus on what _is,_ and fuck what might’ve been, yeah?”

Snow closes his eyes, exhales a long sigh, grunts and nods in agreement.

“Good man,” Fang says. “Besides, I was just getting started. I also found these,” she holds up something that looks like a bullet, but causes Snow and Sazh to start swearing. “Along with some other things that I think are far too familiar for comfort.”

“What the hell are those?” Hope asks.

“They’re the same detonators that I gave the Soldier when she went into the camp. I don’t know how that asshole got his hands on them!”

“I think we do, Sazh,” Snow says. “You said it yourself: they have a mole inside the colony. Obviously, they did more than just spring him from prison and give him our locations.”

“There’s only a few people with access to this stuff, and I can’t imagine any of them being traitors.”

“If people could sniff out traitors just by lookin’ at ‘em, they wouldn’t have the chance to betray anyone. Would they, now?” Fang says.

“Fair enough,” Sazh agrees. “Well, at least this will help me narrow down my list of suspects.”

“That it?” Snow asks.

“Fraid not, Hero.” Fang sighs and pulls out a stack of what appears to be photographs. A lot of them. “Found these. I didn’t look through them all, but I can tell you, this guy has an unhealthy fixation on our girl.”

Snow reaches for the photos, but Fang snatches them back. “I don’t think you really want to see these, Hero.”

“Well, if they’re what I think they are, I definitely don’t want anyone else to see them, either!”

Fang nods helplessly and says, “Some of ‘em are definitely what you think they are.” Snow swears, clenches his fist and punches the wall with his broken hand.

“Great. Now we have to fix the wall, too,” Sazh says, brushing the plaster dust off his face. “The Soldier is gonna kick your ass for putting holes in her walls. And busting up your own hand.”

“And what are the rest of them, if only some of them are what I think they are?” Snow asks.

“Worse,” Fang declares. “I’m gonna take ‘em with me. We need to figure out what we’re gonna do, but you don’t need to deal with these and she certainly doesn’t need to deal with this shit right now. No one will see them, not even me. I promise you.”

Snow looks like he wants to argue when Sazh speaks up, “Let us help you out, Hero. This whole night has been a nightmare for the two of you. You don’t need to deal with this by yourselves.”

“We need you to take care of yourself and our girl right now, yeah? So, you do that. This’ll keep. Once she’s back in tip top, we’ll all figure this out.”

“Okay. Yeah. That sounds good. And Fang?” She arches an eyebrow, waiting for him to continue. “You did good tonight.” 

“Cheers!”

* * *

Lightning is still sleeping on the couch when Sazh, Fang, Vanille and Hope head home. Snow looks bedraggled, stooped beneath some impossible, invisible weight. The only time that Snow ever looked anything close to this defeated was during the war, when Barthandelus showed up in Oerba masquerading as Serah.

The difference, Hope realizes, is that Lightning had been able to snap Snow out of his funk pretty quickly back then. When he really thinks back, it’s clear that Snow and Lightning have been buffering and buttressing one another all along.

“You sure you don’t want to stay at the house with me and Dajh? You two can have the upstairs guest suite. Come on! At least until the Soldier feels better.”

Snow shakes his head once. “Naw, thanks anyway, man, but I don’t want Light waking up someplace unfamiliar. Especially considering how confused she is right now. Maybe tomorrow she’ll be less jumbled up, and we’ll take you up on your offer. Give me a chance to really search this place…”

“All right, but the offer is on the table. And we’re all just a call away. I put my number in your communicator, Dumbass.”

Snow huffs a laugh. “Yeah. Thanks again, old man.”

Fang crouches down and whispers something into Lightning’s ear, stroking a hand through her hair. On her way to the door, she pats Snow on his shoulder, and says, “You take good care of our girl, Hero. Tell her I’ll be by to see her tomorrow, yeah?”

“Will do.”

“Don’t mention the pictures, all right? Not until she’s had a bit of time to recover from this little adventure.”

“I wish I never had to tell her at all, so believe me: I’m not bringing them up tonight. To be honest, I can’t think about them right now either.”

Vanille surprises Snow with a hug, before snatching up the trash bag and heading down the stairs.

Leaving Lightning while she’s in such a wounded, vulnerable state feels all sorts of wrong to Hope, but he knows that she isn’t going to be alone, and that Snow will take care of her. A small, bitter voice reminds him that Snow had not, in fact, protected her tonight, but he knows that blaming Snow is neither fair nor accurate. The only person responsible is the person who stalked, abducted and hurt Light. Hope casts one long, lingering look at Light before heading to the door.

“Take care of her,” Hope orders.

“I promise.”

“And take care of yourself, too. Jerk.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Hope is on the second step down when Snow says, “And Kid? Thanks for everything. I mean it.”

Hope nods at Snow. “Anything you guys need. Anytime. You know that.”

* * *

Sazh drives all of one block before he asks Fang, “So, tell me about those pictures.”

“I told you, I only glanced at them.”

“Come on! Who do you think you’re dealing with right now?”

“You know? That’s real annoying,” Fang huffs.

“Boohoo. Come on. You wouldn’t have insisted on keeping them from him if you didn’t see something awful.”

Hope studies Fang’s profile; her clenched jaw and averted eyes give her away, filling Hope’s belly with butterflies the size of bats.

“I was dead serious about not invading their privacy. So I only glanced at the photos. I didn’t examine them or anything.”

“Stop trying derail me. I’m not accusing you of perving on Snow and Lightning, Fang. What did you see that bothered you?”

“Well, their very existence bothers me. There’s so many of them, and they’re all of Lightning.”

“What did Snow think they were pictures of?” Hope asks.

Fang almost looks relieved at the change of subject, though when she answers him, Hope can’t imagine why. “Personal pictures. Real private like…You know, of the two of ‘em...Together.”

“Together?” Hope understands, but he really, really hopes that he’s misunderstanding.

“Yeah. _Together_ , together.” Fang looks torn between feeling aggravated and amused. Hope knows that any second, Fang is going to say ‘fuck it’ to subtlety, and go for straight up lewd.

“Sex, Hope!” The answer doesn’t surprise Hope; that Vanille said it, does. Hope’s face gets so hot that the window beside him actually fogs up; he can’t imagine what color he’s turned.

“Thanks for the assist, luv.”

“So, what the hell is worse?”

“Well, what was the Hero most upset about tonight?” Fang asks. _What the hell wasn’t he upset about?_ Hope thinks.

“Leaving the soldier alone.”

“Ding, ding. We have a winner! So, what do you think the Hero would think is worse? Pictures of her with him in them—“

“—Pictures of Lightning all alone,” Vanille answers.

Fang sighs. “Especially considering how many of them feature her in various states of undress. In the shower. Changin’ clothes. Personally, the ones of her sleepin’ creeped me out the most.”

“That sick son of a bitch!” Sazh punches the steering wheel twice. “The Hero is right! We shoulda taken care of him right away.”

“Blood under the bridge, and all that rot,” Fang says. “But as bad as all those are, there were two photos that really bothered me.” Fang reaches into her pocket and pulls out two pictures. “These are the only two that don’t feature Lightning in some state of undress. In fact, they don’t feature her at all.”

Sazh stops the truck, turns on the interior light and plucks the photos from Fang’s hands. “When the hell did the Soldier see Serah?”

“That’s a photo of a photo that’s sitting on Sunshine’s desk.”

“Fuck! This guy knows about Serah. Fuck!”

“Yeah. We’re gonna have to do something to make sure Lil’ Sis is safe.”

“The Soldier is going to do something stupid. I just know it.”

“Well, that’s why it’s up to us to make sure she doesn’t need to do something stupid.”

“All right. What else ya got?” Fang hands over the other photo. “What the hell am I looking at?”

“That’s a bed.”

“Doesn’t look like the Soldier’s room.”

“It’s not. But those clothes on the bed? Those are definitely hers.”

“Clothes is a generous description.”

“Unmentionables, then.”

“And do I even want to know why you recognize the Soldier’s underwear?”

Vanille speaks up. “Because we all went shopping together. Duh!”

“Right,” Sazh says. “Women. Shopping. I should have realized.” Sazh shakes his head then continues, “So, when did she buy these?”

“We went shopping – what – ten days ago, Vanille?”

“Sounds right.”

“So, he’s been in there within the last ten days. That’s not exactly a huge revelation. After all, he just snatched her tonight.”

“Yeah, except I found that pair of underwear in her laundry tonight.”

“So…what? The guy took them, took a photo, and put them back?”

“Don’t know. But did you miss the chains on the bed?”

“No. I did not miss the chains on the bed. But seeing as how they’re not attached to a person, they’re not my priority.” Hope can see that Fang has more to say, but she hesitates continuing. “What are you thinking?

Fang throws Hope a surreptitious look, before saying, “Nah. Nothin’. We’ll talk about it later.”

“No way! You’re not actually trying to hide things from me, are you?”

“Look, kid—“

“No! You look! Light is my friend. Snow called me tonight! The only reason that you’re trying to hide it from me is because you think I’m too young.”

“That’s because you are young, Hope,” Sazh interjects.

“I don’t care! What do you think this guy did to Light?”

“It’s not that simple, kid,” Fang says. “This picture could be a threat, or a warning, or an invitation to the Hero; or an illustration of the guy’s plan; or a sick fantasy. Or any number of other things that may or may not mean anything. It’s just a picture.”

“What’s your best guess?” Hope asks, and Fang huffs and throws up her hands.

“Look, I don’t know any more than anyone else knows. All we can do is hope that Lightning wakes up feeling like her normal, sunny self. Either way, she and the Hero are gonna have to sift through all this garbage here to see if they can piece together any sort of timeline. Once we have a timeline, we can start makin’ plans.”

“Plans?”

“Retaliation,” Sazh explains.

* * *

Lightning opens her eyes what seems like minutes, but is probably hours, later. The apartment is dark, and empty but is lightening with the impending dawn. She sits up on the couch to find Snow snoring in the chair next to her.

Lightning shifts and groans, and Snow snaps awake, body tense and prepared for attack. As soon as his eyes land on her, he relaxes and leans forward.

“Hey. You all right?”

“I feel like I’ve been beaten to hell.”

“Well, you are a bit beat up, baby.”

She looks down at herself, realizing that she’s wearing Snow’s coat. Moving to shrug it off causes pain to tear through her whole body.

“Light! Hey, hey, just stop,” Snow says as he attempts to still her. “Let me help you, okay?”

Without waiting for an answer, Snow pushes the coat off one shoulder, then the other, before lifting her into his arms, carrying her to the bedroom and lowering her onto the bed.

“I’m a mess,” Lightning says as she gets a look at her ruined clothes, and dirty, blood-streaked skin.

“You’re beautiful,” Snow says, kissing her forehead. “Do you want me to draw you a bath?”

“No. That’s too much effort, and takes too long. I’m going to take a shower.”

“All right.” Snow lifts her hand and presses a kiss into her palm. “I’ll change those bandages afterward, okay?”

She cups his jaw, and places a soft kiss on Snow’s lips. “That sounds good.”

Lightning limps into the bathroom, leaving the door open. Lightning shucks her torn, bloody pajamas and steps under the water before it warms up. Shivering under the tepid water, Lightning puts her face and hair under the spray, and feels some of the confusion that had still clung to her mind, finally rinse away. Once the water heats up, Lightning grabs her shampoo and turns around to let the hot water beat down on her sore back.

The first brush of hot water against the skin of her arms and upper back makes her yelp. Snow appears in the bathroom as if by magic. “Are you okay, Light?”

 _No._ “I…I don’t know.”

“Do you need help?”

Pathetic as it may sound, Lightning needs him right now. The past few hours have been worse than any nightmare she’s ever had. Lightning has spent hours flailing, feeling unmoored. All she wants is for Snow to tell her that it’s over, and they’re okay. _“Please.”_

Within seconds, Snow slides the shower door open and steps in with her. He takes the shampoo from her hands, and gently turns her around to face the water again.

“You’re all bruised, baby,” he whispers, hand running up her right shoulder blade until it meets the clavicle, then outward toward the humerus. He places a soft kiss on her shoulder before asking, “Did you dislocate your shoulder again?”

“No. It’s in the socket, but it hurts like hell.” She lifts her arm and the joint snaps in protest.

“Fuck. That doesn’t sound good.”

“It does that, sometimes, but that’s because the ligament is too loose. The ball slips around in the socket more than it should.”

Snow’s hands land on her back and shoulder, fingers probing at the knots of muscle behind her shoulder blade, before he wraps both hands around her arm to work all the muscles from shoulder to wrist. Long, slow sweeps of strong hands, slippery with soap, work to soothe the ache out of her freshly bruised shoulder.

When Snow turns her around to let the hot water beat down on her shoulder, she leans against him, presses a kiss into his sternum, and drowses.

Snow is all business as he washes the blood and dirt out of her hair. Long fingers massage her scalp as he works up a good lather, piling her hair on top of her head. “Keep your eyes closed, baby.”

Lightning loses track of everything as Snow takes his time rinsing the shampoo out of her hair, then cleaning the blood and dirt off her body. At one point, he traces his fingers along her lower back and asks, “Does this hurt?”

“It stings a bit,” she admits, looking over her shoulder to try to get a peek at what he’s seeing. “What is it?”

“There’s patches of skin all over you that look raw.” He touches a few more spots on her back and arms, then presses kisses to them. Almost absently, he whispers, “What the hell did he do to you?”

Lightning opens her eyes and looks at one of the raw patches on her upper arm. “It probably happened when I fell.”

“ _Fell?_ They’re all over your body, Lightning! What could you possibly have fallen on? A fuckin’ cheese grater?”

“The ground.” Snow huffs in aggravation, but doesn’t press for more. Lightning’s memories are no longer the mixed up jigsaw that they were earlier, but she still doesn’t have all the pieces in place. Regardless, she tells him what she remembers: “He pushed me—“

 _“I’ll push him,”_ Snow mumbles under his breath.

“—Out of the car.”

Snow’s eyes snap up to meet hers before dropping back to the raw patch of skin on her arm. He brushes his fingers against the overly sensitive skin and whispers, “He pushed you out of a moving car?”

Lightning nods. “Yeah. Let’s get out of the shower. I’m tired. I want to lay down.”

Snow reaches over her to shut off the shower before stepping out, wrapping one towel around his waist and another around her body. Snow dries himself off and slips into a fresh pair of pajama pants, before taking the towel from her and gently patting her dry.

“I’m okay, Snow. I promise.” Kneeling before her, Snow just shakes his head and continues drying off her legs. He helps her step into a set of clean, warm pajama pants, then grabs the towels and heads off to the laundry room. Lightning struggles into her tank top, desperate to climb into bed with Snow, wrap her arms around him and get some much needed rest.

Snow and the medkit await her when she exits the bathroom.

“They’re really not that bad, Snow.”

He pats the bed. “Humor me, all right?”

She zones out as he bandages her wrists and ankles, but she winces when the antiseptic touches the cut on her neck. Snow mumbles an apology and blows on the cut, causing her to shiver. “Wanna tell me what happened here?”

Lightning hesitates long enough for him to finish bandaging the cut and begin cleaning up the mess from the medkit.

“I actually don’t think that this cut was intentional.” Snow gives her a look of pure disbelief. “What I mean is that cutting me wasn’t his goal.” She runs her fingers over the dark ligature mark, remembering the horror of strangling and choking. “He cut through the noose that was strangling me.”

Snow touches the bruise first with his fingers then his lips. He whispers, “I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“All of this. Everything.”

“You have nothing to be sorry about.”

Snow shakes his head at her but doesn’t argue. Instead he says, “Wanna tell me what happened? Do you remember now?”

“Yeah, I think so. Most of it, I guess. I’m sorry I was so confused before. I don’t know why—“

“Please don’t apologize. Nothing that happened was your fault.”

“It wasn’t your fault either, Snow. I wish you wouldn’t blame yourself for this.”

Snow shakes his head again, but still refuses to accept her absolution. “So, what do you remember?”

“He was in the room when I woke up,” she starts. She explains what she can remember: the struggle in the bed, the chloroform, waking up hearing Snow, the rope around her throat, being injected with a drug and stuffed into a bag. Snow’s jaw gets tighter and tighter as she talks. His eyes blaze with rage. She looks away and continues, trying to be as calm as possible as she tells him about being shoved out of the moving vehicle. She glosses over as much as possible, and completely leaves out her own terror, choosing to pretend it never happened.

“You were tied up, gagged, paralyzed and stuffed into a bag when he shoved you out of a moving car?” Snow’s voice is even, running down the list of horrors with clinical detachment. Lightning can’t look at him, so she stares over his shoulder and nods in affirmation.

“Odin was right on our tail, and he didn’t want to deal with him. So, he shoved the bag out the door. I’m pretty sure I got knocked out at that point. I woke up with Odin healing me.” Snow eyes the bandages around her wrists until she admits, “There was too much damage for him to heal everything. I assume all these patches of raw looking skin were road rash. I think I hit my head pretty badly. And I know my shoulder really hurt. It’s a bit of a blur, but I think it broke. Odin healed the worst of it. Just like with you, the minor cuts and bruises will just have to heal on their own. Most of the other damage wouldn’t have.”

“That motherfucker!” Snow explodes. “I knew I should’ve killed him when I had the chance!”

“Snow—”

“He deserved it. For everything he did to you, and for everything he did to God only knows how many other people! I let him live, and look at what he did to you! Again!”

“It was my choice, Snow.”

“You chose it because of me! I knew that then. I shouldn’t have let you!”

“Let me? You don’t ‘let me’ do things, Snow! I made a decision, and I’d make it again! We know more than we did before. More than we would have if we’d killed him.”

“I don’t care about any of that information, Lightning. Do you think any of that matters more than you?”

“Can we please not fight? Please? I have a headache. My whole body hurts from being tied up and stuffed into a canvas bag, then pushed out of a moving car.”

Snow sits down next to her and pulls her against his side. “I’m sorry.”

Lightning rests her head against Snow’s chest, soothed by the sound of his heartbeat. “Don’t apologize. I just don’t want to argue, okay? Especially about things that we can’t change.”

“Okay. You’re right. It’s just…I love you, Lightning, and I can’t stand that I let this happen to you.”

“You didn’t let anything happen, Snow. And I love you, too,” she sighs. She feels Snow’s fingers tracing the thick, ugly bruise ringing her throat, before they meander down her arm to the messy injection site.

“Maybe we should go to the infirmary tomorrow. Get you checked out. Just in case. I mean, who knows what he actually dosed you with.”

“Just say what you’re really thinking, Snow.” Lightning knows what Snow fears happened while she was missing. All things considered, it’s a logical concern. 

“You were unconscious. What if—“

“He didn’t,” she insists with far more certainty than she feels.

“But you were unconscious. How can you be sure?”

“Because I was unconscious, and that wouldn’t be any fun for him.” Snow winces. “To be honest, I don’t think that’s how he gets his jollies, but if it is, it’s only because it’s a way to terrorize his victims. Trust me. The fear is what matters to him.”

Snow wraps both arms around her and waits.

“He could’ve drugged me with anything. He could’ve chloroformed me again, or given me some sort of sedative. He chose a paralytic. He wanted me awake, and helpless. He wanted me to know that I was helpless. Then he stuffed me in a bag, knowing that I couldn’t get out. Every part of me hurt, the way he shoved me in there. And he knew it, and he did it on purpose. And then he told me how he was going to deliver my body to you in that same bag once his buddy was done with me.”

“He was next door,” Snow admits, out of nowhere.

“What?”

“He’s been right next door to us.”

“He _was_ watching me that night.” Lightning knows that she needs to tell Snow that she felt like she was being watched several times since that night, but she really doesn’t want to start another argument.

“He was watching you a lot more than that one time.” Snow looks sick when he says, “There was a hole in our bedroom closet that he used to get in. Fang went through it, and found evidence that he’d been in here, watching, a lot. And after I left last night, he used that secret passageway to get into our home, attack you, and take you out of here.”

“I heard you. I didn’t understand why you sounded so close, but now it makes sense! I was right next door, listening to you go crazy looking for me.”

This new information forces Lightning to reevaluate the events of the evening before Two’s plans had been preempted by his partner or partners. The chains; the knowing, creepy, overly familiar and intimate touches; the whispered promise of taking her apart and making Snow beg. Two had been seconds from fulfilling those promises. All he would have needed was Lightning to make one involuntary sound, and Snow would’ve run directly into his trap. One well-placed hit, a tranquilizer, or hell, an actual fucking bullet, and Snow would be down. Hell, one direct threat to Lightning, and Snow would’ve chained himself up, and Lightning fucking knows it.

Lightning doesn’t want to think or talk about how her skin crawled when Two touched her in a perverse parody of Snow’s teasing touch. She’s sick of these freaks trying to – and in some cases, succeeding at – poisoning everything pure and perfect in Lightning’s life. She’s never going to allow them to use her to hurt Snow, though she knows that he won’t appreciate the gesture at all. Still, he needs to understand their ultimate goal, and how far they’re willing to go to achieve it, in order to have any chance at preventing it.

_Truth time. This is gonna suck._

“When I first woke up in there, my feet were tied by a really short rope — way too short — to a noose around my neck. Trying to move my legs, tightened the noose to the point where it could easily kill me.”

Snow reaches for the bruise around her throat, brushes gentle fingers over it before leaning in very slowly and peppering light kisses along the line of the ligature mark. Then he moves up the side of her neck, following what Lightning can only assume to be the light bruising he’d left when she startled him from his nightmare. “I’m sorry.”

“Stop apologizing. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“This shouldn’t have happened.”

“That still doesn’t make it your fault, Snow. Please stop.”

“All right. So, if he tied the noose, why did he cut it off?” 

“I’ve been afraid plenty of times in my life, but there are only a few times that I’ve ever felt helpless,” she admits. “Losing Serah to crystal stasis. Finding you in that pit, knowing that there was nothing I could do to save you; and this time, knowing that he could do anything he wanted to me at all, and I would just have to lay there and take it.”

“Light—“

“He’s not going to stop until he gets me. And you. What he really wants is to hurt me while you watch. That was what he threatened to do. To force you to watch as he hurt me, knowing that you couldn’t save me.”

“That won’t—“

“I could hear you. You were frantic, trying to find me. I thought I was losing my mind, because it didn’t make sense that you should sound so close and yet, not be right there. But I could hear how scared you were, and he was laughing about making you beg him to stop. And the thought of him using me as a weapon against you? Unacceptable.”

Pale as a ghost, Snow asks: “What are you saying to me right now?”

“The reason he cut the noose off was because I intentionally tightened it.”

_“Lightning!”_

“You’re not the only one who gets to protect the person they love, Snow! And I’m telling you right now: I’m not sitting around waiting for these people to ambush us again so they can use me against you.”

“What does that mean, Lightning?”

“If they want to abduct me, then maybe we should just let them do it.”

“Absolutely not!”

“Snow—“

“ _Absolutely not!_ No. _No!_ You are not using yourself as _psycho bait_. No—“

“I don’t know what makes you think that you just get to yell ‘no’ at me, like you’re laying down the law, but that’s not how anything works.”

“I can’t do it, Light. How do you expect me to just stand by and let some fucking psychopath take you somewhere where anything can happen to you while I — what? — chase after you from a safe distance? _Fucking. No!”_

Lightning crosses her arms, raises an eyebrow and stares at Snow. That he believes he can just order her not to do something is absolutely astonishing. She knows that the events of the evening terrified him, so she’s trying to cut him some slack. Unfortunately, he doesn’t seem willing to reciprocate right now. 

Seemingly fed up with Lightning’s silent disapproval, Snow explodes. “Don’t look at me like that! How about this: let’s use Hope as bait.”

“ _What?_ Are you insane?” _How can he even suggest something so ridiculous and dangerous?_

“No! I’m not insane. You are! You understand why it’s outrageous to suggest putting Hope in such a dangerous situation, but refuse to understand why it’s just as fucking unacceptable to volunteer yourself.”

Lightning opens her mouth to argue that Hope is just a child, whereas she is a soldier, but Snow decides to beat his point into her skull.

“Would you stand by and let Serah use herself as bait?” Snapping her mouth shut, Lightning just glares at Snow. How dare he use Serah against her in an argument? “I know _I_ wouldn’t. And I wouldn’t let Vanille or Fang or Sazh or _anyone else_ — _whether I knew them or not!_ — put themselves in the hands of those _fucking monsters!_ You have no idea what they will do! You think you do, because you inferred some shit, but I promise you that you fucking don’t! And I’m not letting you do this. If that’s a deal breaker for you, that’s fine. I’m still not letting you do it!”

Snow’s final statement extinguishes her fiery temper with all the efficiency of a global flood. Lightning can’t even remember what she was angry about anymore. She whispers the only thing he said that really matters: “Deal breaker?” 

“If protecting your life means I have to lose you, it’s an easy choice to make.” Lightning gasps and recoils. Snow grabs both her wrists, stares into her eyes and insists, “It’ll fucking destroy me, but I’d rather live without you and know that you’re alive and safe, then give them the opportunity to do to you, any of the horrible shit that they did to me.”

Lightning jerks her wrists out of Snow’s hands, then throws her arms around his neck and just clings to him. He’s trembling, whether it’s with fear, anger or some caustic cocktail of the two, she doesn’t know; all Lightning knows is that the stakes in this battle are too high for her to continue fighting.

Putting their relationship on the table feels completely unfair to Lightning; still, those stakes are too high for her.

Would she put her life on the line in order to flush out and end this threat once and for all? Undoubtedly. Will she give up Snow, their life together, and the future they’re trying to build, especially after everything she’s lost in order to get to this point with him? Even thinking about it makes her sick.

Snow is right: she wouldn’t risk anyone else for her plan to play bait. But so what? _This is who she is, and Snow knows that!_ He knew that back when he couldn’t stand her; he accepted it when they were allies and comrades-in-arms; it doesn’t seem fair for him to demand that she stop being herself now that they’re together.

Before she can work herself up into a good, outraged lather, she considers how she’d deal with a role reversal, and is immediately nauseated.

Lightning thinks about finding Snow in that pit, no heartbeat, no breathing, ribs shattered, mouth full of blood, and she knows that she’d do anything to prevent him from ever again falling into the hands of the monsters who’d so thoroughly destroyed him.

Her mind conjures it all in too-vivid detail: Snow, back on that rack, alone for hours upon hours, waiting for rescue, wondering why she hadn’t come yet, as his torturers work to dismantle him piece by piece. Making him scream until his voice gives out. Destroying every part of his body from the outside in, until all his systems shut down.

Finally giving up on the idea of rescue.

Exhaling his final breaths as she tries desperately to find him; reach him. Save him.

 _No!_ Just. No.

"Please stop,” she begs.

“I’ll never stop fighting for you, Lightning.”

“I’m not going to lose you over this. We’ll think of something else.”

Snow peels her arms from around his neck, cups her face, stares into her eyes and says: “You’re not going to try to use yourself as bait. Say it. I need you to promise me that you’re not going to willingly put yourself in that kind of danger.”

“I promise. We’ll think of something else.” Snow huffs out a huge breath and pulls her against him. Her nose is mashed against his shoulder when she says, “Please don’t ever say ‘deal breaker’ again.”

Snow pulls her against his body and buries his face in her neck. “It’s not a threat or ultimatum, Light. I’m not going anywhere.” He pulls back and looks into her eyes. “I don’t want to make your decisions for you. And it’s not that I don’t trust you to take care of yourself. But this is beyond… The thought of these sadists putting their hands on you…no. I can’t even think about it. And I know that, as brutal as they usually are, they’ll be worse to you. Not only because of what we did in that camp, but because of who you are to me.”

“I don’t understand.”

“There’s things that you don’t know. I honestly never wanted to tell you, but I think you need to hear them now.”

“If you don’t want to tell me—“

“I don’t want to think about it, let alone talk about it. But you’re never going to understand until I explain some of what happened. Come and sit down with me.”

Snow sits on the bed, and pulls her into his arms. Lightning lays her head on his chest and startles when she feels how fast and hard Snow’s heart is pounding. 

“When they captured me, they assumed that I was looking for someone I loved.” Snow swallows, clears his throat and continues: “I did a lot of damage before they managed to take me down, Light. I mean, a lot.” Nothing about that admission surprises Lightning. She knows exactly how formidable Snow is. “Once they piled on and took me down, they wanted to know who I was looking to rescue. So they could do to her — to _you_ — what they did to me. While I watched.”

“They were looking for payback, at first. They wanted me to watch them destroy the person that mattered the most to me.” Snow reaches for a glass of water by the bedside and takes a long drink. “When they couldn’t force me to give up any information about you, they decided to try a new approach. That’s when they brought all the prisoners in to watch. The goal was to make the person I loved – make _you_ – give yourself away. They figured that anyone who loved me would object…to what they did to me.”

Lightning closes her eyes against the sting of the tears. Of course she’d have ‘objected.’ She’d have gutted them all if she’d been there. She doesn’t want to make this any harder on Snow. This isn’t about her feelings.

“Of course, what they did to me upset all the women. No real surprise there. Most people don’t react well to watching the brutal torture of another human being.” Snow’s chuckle lacks any humor. “But since they couldn’t flush you out, they decided to change the game. So they told me just to pick someone. Anyone. All the pain would be over. All I needed to do was pick someone to take my place on the rack. Watch them torture her to death. Then go rape someone. And I’d get to be an official conscript.”

 _“What?” Conscript?_ How many men were there against their will? How many conscripts had Lightning killed?

“Mercifully, you weren’t in there, so I didn’t have to worry about giving myself away. But I was fucking terrified that I’d end up betraying you to them.” Lightning shakes her head against his chest, but Snow just keeps talking. “I knew if I looked at you, they’d fucking know. They’d see it in my eyes. I did everything I could not to look at any of those women, just in case you were there. But when they started…hurting me, and I didn’t hear you, I could finally breathe, because I knew you weren’t there.”

“Except they know who you are now, Light. And I know that they’ll do every horrible thing they did to me, every awful thing they do to the women that they take, and anything else they can think of. Because they promised me that I’d give you up, and I didn’t, and then they promised that I’d break and give in. And I didn’t. And it made them angry that they couldn’t make me do what they wanted me to do. All they could do was hurt me. And hurt me. And hurt me.”

Snow’s eyes are red and wet when they meet Lightning’s. “But nothing they did could possibly hurt me more than them hurting you. Do you understand me?”

Lightning nods, and Snow puts a finger on her lips to stop whatever response she’s about to give him.

“When I woke up in the dark, and heard your voice, I thought I had to be in hell. While they were cutting, and stomping, and burning and shocking me, all I could think was that at least you were safe. You weren’t there. And then, all of a sudden you were, and I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t even move. I could barely breathe, and you were there, and they were going to hurt you and I couldn’t stop it.”

“Snow—“

“No. I don’t want pity. I want you to understand why I can’t do it. Not this, Lightning. I’d do _anything_ for you, but please don’t ask me to stand by and watch you put yourself in this position. _Please._ ”

“I won’t,” she promises, but it’s obvious that Snow doesn’t believe her.

“The nightmare I had last night…I know you think it was about what they did to me, but it wasn’t. When I got to that garage and found you chained to that rack, I knew I fucked up. That I’d failed you. That I should have told you the truth so you knew what to expect in there. But I didn’t want you to see...”

“In my dream, he was hurting you while I tried to get to you. No matter how fast I ran, no matter which way I turned, I couldn’t get into the garage. But I could hear you calling my name.”

“Snow—“

“Stop!” he insists. “If I could, I’d disappear with you someplace where they could never find us, just to make sure that they’d never get their hands on you. Not exactly heroic, I know. And in my head, I know we can’t just let these fuckers get away with everything they’ve done. And I know that you are more than capable of protecting yourself. Hell, you’re more than capable of protecting me! My head knows that!” He sighs. “But my heart, Light…my heart beats for you.”

Lightning presses her lips to Snow’s, desperate to stop the words hurting both of them so terribly. Lightning straddles Snow’s lap, sinks her fingers into his hair and her teeth into his bottom lip. Snow grunts, and Lightning takes the opportunity to slip her tongue into his mouth. Snow moans and submits to her will. Lightning trails her fingers over Snow’s cheekbones, down his neck, across his clavicle, down over his sternum, through the lines of his abs, past his navel, to tug on the downy hair above his waistband before finally slipping into his pajama bottoms.

“Light,” Snow whines. “Please.”

Lightning wraps her hand around the base of Snow’s cock, and works him in slow, steady strokes. When his breath catches, she adds a bit of pressure and a quick wrist twist on the upstroke. She presses her other thumb beneath the head, rubbing tiny circles there then swiping the pad of her thumb over the head.

It’s not long before Snow moves in time with her strokes, hips rocking up into her fist and sounding off with every swipe of her thumb. When Lightning feels him hardening, she pulls him out of his pants, shucks her own pajama bottoms, and guides him to her entrance.

“Oh fuck! Light! Let me—“

“No,” she whispers as she works herself down onto his cock. For the first time since Snow first made love to her, Lightning feels a twinge of discomfort accompanying the usual pleasure. Her brain’s desire to make love to Snow wasn’t quite enough to override her body’s injury and exhaustion, meaning that when she takes her very well-endowed lover inside herself, her body is not as prepared as it usually is. 

Lightning needs this right now, so she ignores the discomfort, and forces herself down, pausing to adjust once Snow is nestled fully inside her body. Snow curses when she settles on him, but otherwise, he remains still. 

Lightning adores him. He’s so hurt, and Lightning wants is to alleviate his burden, but she knows that she can’t. All she can do is show him how much she loves him.

Lightning pulls the straps of her tank top off her shoulders and lets the shirt drop. Snow’s eyes zero in on her bare breasts. He leans forward to suckle at her right breast, and reaches for her other breast with his right hand. Lightning intercepts his hand, laces their fingers together, leans forward to press a soft kiss to his temple, and then begins riding Snow at a hard, fast pace.

Snow groans, and Lightning tightens her hold on both his hands. When he lifts his head from her breast and stares into her eyes, she arches her back, circles her hips, and uses all her considerable lower body strength to squeeze, push, pull and massage the cock inside her.

Snow grunts, head falling back against the headboard, eyes closed in pleasure as he surrenders control of his body to Lightning.

The entire time Lightning rides Snow, she never takes her eyes off his face. Every time his forehead creases up, she bears down on him, clenching until his mouth drops open and his neck arches back. She answers every plea with a swivel of her hips and a tightening of her pelvic floor. She wants to exhaust him, physically and mentally, and so she puts him through his paces until he’s sweating and struggling to wait for her to reach her peak.

Snow is nothing if not a generous and thoughtful lover.

But Lightning isn’t working for her own climax right now. Instead, Lightning is trying to say with her body all the things that she fails to convey with words alone. Every time she rises and falls over Snow, she wants him to feel her devotion to him; she embeds the words ‘I adore you’ into every swivel of her hips; each time she clenches around him, she wants him to understand how she never wants to lose him. 

When Snow’s hips start jerking beneath her, Lightning only picks up her pace until his every twitch is accompanied by a wheezing grunt. A tear slips from the corner of Snow’s closed eyes, a low groan builds in the back of his throat, and Lightning knows that he has reached the limit of his endurance.

“Come for me, baby,” Lightning orders.

“Oh. Please,” he begs. Lightning places Snow’s hands on her breasts, braces her own on his abs, and only rides him even harder.

“Come, Snow. I’ve got you. It’s okay. I love you. Just come for me.”

Snow’s hips jerk upward as he finally gives in to her. Lightning rides him hard and fast through his orgasm, clenching and relaxing in order to prolong his pleasure. When Snow goes boneless beneath her, Lightning allows herself to relax all her muscles and rest her forehead on Snow’s chest.

Lightning feels a wave of exhaustion wash over her. Her lower back throbs with a dull ache, and there’s a soreness between her legs reminding her that Snow is a very large man, and a bit more preparation in the future would be advisable.

Fuck it. Lightning never minded a bit of pain mixed in with her pleasure, and she sure as hell won’t regret anything that puts that look of peace on Snow’s face. She leans forward and presses a gentle kiss against Snow’s slack lips, before finally lifting off him and letting him slip out of her body.

“That was amazing,” Snow pants. He looks into her eyes and says, “You’re amazing.”

Lightning wraps her arms around Snow, kisses the corner of each eye, the apple of each cheek, before pressing a chaste, closed mouth kiss against his lips. When he sighs, she traces her tongue along the inside of his bottom lip before taking his lower lip between hers and nibbling on it. Snow’s fingers trace over her back until they slip beneath her bottom and lift her up to shift her onto the bed beside him.

All the aches and pains in Lightning’s body sound off at once, and she lets out a pained grunt into Snow’s mouth.

“You all right?”

Lightning arches her back and all the various abused parts of her body protest in a series of cracks and snaps.

Snow winces at her skeleton’s chorus of misery. “Ouch. That sounded painful.”

“Mm.” Lightning rolls her neck until it cracks, then slips her pajama pants back on lays back on the bed. “Being stuffed into a duffel bag didn’t do much for my posture.”

Snow lays on his side, staring down at her. He kisses her bruised neck, then peppers kisses from her clavicle to her still exposed breasts. Just as he closes his lips over one nipple, his other hand cups the other breast before his thumb and forefinger pinch, pull and rub.

Lightning slides her hands into Snow’s hair, running her fingers through the silky strands of golden hair, closes her eyes, and basks in Snow’s expert attention. Slipping one leg between her thighs, Snow hovers above her, alternating attention between her breasts until Lightning’s whole body is bowed backwards.

Snow peels her pajama bottoms off again before shifting beside her on the bed. He confuses Lightning when he says, “Turn over for me, okay, baby?”

Lightning rolls away from Snow to lay on her stomach. As soon as she settles, Snow’s lips land on her shoulder blade and his hands land on her lower back. He presses his thumbs into the muscle on either side of her spine, rubbing and kneading in an attempt to loosen the many knots and spasms in her back.

Snow’s hands are fucking magic. Within minutes, Lightning is drooling and groaning into her pillow as Snow uses his fingers, thumbs, palms, fists, and even elbows to loosen all the knots and calm all the spasms caused by her ordeal last night.

Lightning has no idea how much time passes before Snow lays beside her, and presses wet, open mouthed kisses from the nape of her neck, down her spine to the small of her back. When his tongue slips down lower, Lightning’s eyes snap open. “Snow…”

“No, relax, baby.” He moves across the small of her back, until she feels just the barest hint of teeth against her hipbone. “Turn on your side.”

“If you really want to—“

“No, baby. Not now. But if you’re serious, we’ll talk about it another time. When you’re not all beat up, and we’re not both exhausted and raw. Right now, just relax and let me make you feel good.”

Snow snuggles up against her, so that she can feel every muscle in his chest pressed against her back. Snow’s hand sweeps along her flank in long, languorous strokes, until it finally comes to rest low on her belly.

“You want to go to sleep?”

“Mm.” _Sleep sounds nice…_

Snow’s hand inches down a bit, and his knee slips between her legs. “Or do you want me to touch you?”

“Oh.” _That sounds nice…_

“I don’t like leaving you unsatisfied—“

“You didn’t.”

“Agree to disagree,” Snow says. “You gave me what I needed, Light. Can I try? Can I touch you?”

 _Fuckin-A._ “Yes.”

Lightning’s body hasn’t forgotten the multiple false starts over the past hour, and she can feel her body heating up at the very notion of Snow putting his hands on her right now. Snow slides his leg between her thighs at the same time his hand moves lower and brushes against her. Lightning whines as Snow’s other hand rubs the tips of both breasts at once.

Grunting, Lightning pushes her chest outward into Snow’s hand, enjoying the feeling of his middle finger and thumb rubbing small circles on her at the same time. And because Snow is nothing if not a sexy fucker, his other fingers trace small, expert circles over and around Lightning’s clit, before he presses and rubs her.

Once again, Snow has assumed direct control over Lightning’s whole body in a matter of moments. She can feel his cock pressing against her lower back, and she whispers, “Make love to me, Snow.”

Snow exhales in her ear before sucking a bruise into the nape of Lightning’s neck. His fingers pick up the pace, slipping down to circle her entrance, before moving back upward, rubbing, tapping and finally, pinching that bundle of nerves, sending Lightning sailing right over the edge.

When her breathing and heart rate return to normal, Lightning feels sleep beckoning. Snow, it seems, has beat her to it. His arm is heavy where it presses against her hip, and his exhalations are hot against the nape of her neck. Snow’s leg still rests between hers, and she can still feel him pressed hard and hot against the small of her back.

Something fun for later, she thinks. That’s a good thing, because she knows that when they wake up, all the problems from last night will still loom large before them. But for the first time since Lightning’s parents died, she knows that she won’t have to face everything alone. The man holding her right now – not to mention the friends who showed up for her – will be there to help her deal with this threat.

Sore, but sated, Lightning drifts into a comfortable slumber.

* * *

“So, where the fuck is she?”

Luc – he likes this name, even though it’s not his own – withdraws one of his hand rolled clove cigarillos, sniffs it and tucks it behind his ear. “My guess is she’s fucking lover boy right now.”

“This is a complete clusterfuck.”

Luc laughs at the ‘Boss;’ a tactic designed to rile the other man.

 _Mission fucking accomplished_ , Luc thinks.

“You had her. How the hell did you lose her?”

Fuck that. He owes no explanations whatsoever. “About that…How did you know I had her?”

“Irrelevant.”

“Says you.”

“I think you’ve forgotten who’s in charge, here!”

“I think you’ve let your time as the biggest fish in the puddle go to your fucking head, Little Lord Fauntleroy. When was the last time you had to deal with anyone that wasn’t hogtied with a friggin’ apple in their mouth already? And him? Fucking-A! Neither one of you would survive thirty minutes on the Steppe. Say what you want about Lover Boy and Honey Pot, but at least those two are fuckin’ survivors. I bet the kid is tougher than either one of you!”

“You took the chance. You defied orders and took her, and then fucked up and lost her. What am I supposed to do with you now?”

Lighting the cigarillo, Luc says, “Ask yourself this question: what are you going to do without me? Who’s gonna hunt for you? Or are you gonna pretend that you’re gonna hunt for yourself?”

“We both know that you’re not gonna do a fuckin’ thing to me. If you don’t like the way I do things, then I’ll be happy to fuck off and leave you to your tiny fiefdom. Good luck maintaining it without me.”

“You can’t go after her again.”

“Maybe I can, maybe I can’t…but I have a whole new target anyway.”

“I’m serious.”

“Like I give a fuck!” Luc says, as he heads to his new vehicle.

_Oerba, here I come._

**Author's Note:**

> The formatting on this story was a wreck. If you find formatting errors, please let me know. It's 54 pages without the extra space it added after every paragraph. With it, it turned into a 75 page nightmare. I'm sure I screwed up somewhere. Apologies in advance.


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